


the fallen princess

by Hikaaru18



Category: 12 Dancing Princesses (Fairy Tale)
Language: Bosanski
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-08-10 09:30:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 43
Words: 249,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20133217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hikaaru18/pseuds/Hikaaru18





	1. Prologue

The northern chill did little to stay her movements as she shrugged out of her furs, pulling the garb over her head and tossing it into a pile in the snow. It was high winter, when the chill seeped into the ground itself and made it hard as stone, but she had felt its bite for years and years and now fancied it an old friend, one to welcome with open arms.

Of course, the warm springs at her feet made the cold more bearable as well, its steam billowing over her legs until the fine hairs there stood on edge.

“Tell the men to settle for the night,” she said when she had stripped down to her skin. “There’s no point to us setting sail anymore.” She gazed up into the black sky, counting the brightest stars. “The lights won’t dance for us tonight.”

“I wasn’t aware the dancing lights commanded our departure,” her husband said with a snort.

“They don’t,” she replied easily and stepped out into the hot water of the spring, the first ripple of a shudder racing up her spine. “But it makes for a better spirit, to know the sky celebrates our voyage as well as the sea.”

“Spirit,” he echoed in amusement.

She grinned at his tone and turned where she stood so she could see him. “Yes, Qasim,” she said. “Spirit. It is with spirit that our men bear their arms and sail to battle, and with spirit that they sing the songs our gods have taught them.”

She raised a hand to her shoulder and traced the patterns of white and blue, the paint her vǫlva had drawn onto her skin before their voyage. She did not have to look to know her husband followed the path of her fingers, lingering on her breast before flickering down between her legs. “It’s with spirit you look at me like that,” she said slyly, laughing when he merely shrugged and continued to stare. “Away with you. I won’t have you touch me before I’ve had my bath.”

“As if a single bath could cleanse you,” he retorted, half smug, half petulant.

“Go away, Qasim,” she said, “or I’ll drown you in this shallow spring and have the others come dance on your floating corpse.”

“Charming,” her husband said and turned to leave, but not before bowing deep in mock salute. “As you command, oh fearsome Cardinal Sabelsdottír.”

“Bastard,” she muttered cheerfully, the word slipping out of her as a contented hum as she settled comfortably in the spring. The water was piping hot, warmed by the molten fires that flowed far beneath the ground, drawn so close to the surface by the breathing mountains further north. The heat warmed her bones and made her sweat, such a stark, unnatural contrast to the biting cold of the north.

She had bathed in these springs ever since she’d been nothing more than a wee girl, long before her mother had passed her the name of Sabelsdottír.

Talya scrubbed at her skin until it was pink and spotless, washing away the shaman’s paint and the dirt that had gathered there during her voyage. They had been at sea for months and months, sailing north past Svalbard to the farthest coast of Greenland, where they had searched tirelessly for the Northern Star, a precious jewel said to have fallen out of the sky itself.

They had found the gem in the hands of another pirate crew, its captain a vicious youngster with a name she hadn’t learned, and pried it from their dead hands upon their refusal to surrender. “Your family is cursed by the gods,” the young captain had spat through a mouthful of blood, Talya’s Blessing’s fangs buried deep in his neck. “Hel will drag you down to her halls and torment you until Ragnarök has passed and the world is swallowed by the sea!”

Had Talya been human then, she might’ve laughed. Not in spite or mockery, but at the thought of a world with no land. For her, it would be more of a paradise than eternal torment. With a snarl, she had clenched her powerful jaw and sent the pirate ahead to greet the gods at the gates of Hel in her stead.

Once she deemed herself clean enough, she dragged herself through the water until she could lean against the edge of the spring, sighing in content as she lay her head against the frozen ground. The skin of her neck prickled and shuddered, but Talya only smiled. All the night’s stars stretched out above her, glittering every bit as bright as the jewel safely stowed away aboard her ship.

It was a gift. She didn’t yet know when, but she was to see her son soon. There had been rumours in the east of the Black Snow sailing home, thus she had wanted to make sure she would be ready to welcome him in splendour. A gem as precious as the Northern Star would be perfect, one he could keep for himself or give to whomever he fancied his love.

The prospect of his glee made Talya smile widely and she chuckled before letting herself be pulled down into the water. She held her breath and counted, every muscle in her body easing under the warmth of the spring. It had been a long time since she’d last felt this peaceful, and she savoured it for as long as her lungs allowed.

When she emerged again, she was no longer alone.

A stranger stood at the edge of the spring, tall and thin and clad all in black. Their face was hidden beneath a hood, hands clasped behind their back, and they were looking at her. They stood unmoving, yet the air around them was alive, distorting their silhouette and melding with the night’s darkness.

Talya remained seated in the spring, only moving to push her dripping hair out of her face. The stranger was waiting, she knew; their smugness was palpable, pleased with the surprise they had already caused her. Now, they waited for her tension and perhaps even fear, but she would not give them either.

Instead, she leaned back against the edge and arched an expectant brow at the stranger where they stood on the opposite side of the spring.

“You seem unafraid,” they said. By their voice, Talya knew they were a man.

“You’ve given me no reason to fear,” she said lightly, smiling. “Or do you fancy yourself frightening to behold?”

“You're arrogant.”

“Yes,” Talya agreed. “Does it matter?”

The stranger struggled for a moment, contemplating whether or not he should raise to the bait. “It doesn’t,” he said at last, much to Talya’s delight. The tone of his voice was stiff, and she knew she had struck at his pride; she was a woman, alone and bare to her skin, and so her lack of fear must’ve insulted him and the advantage he’d thought he would have.

“I thought as much,” she said and made a show of looking around. “You must be cold. Strangers rarely fare well in the lands of my home, especially those lack of proper muscle to keep their bones warm.” She smiled sweetly. “You’re welcome to bathe with me. These springs would surely do wonders for one such as you.”

“I have not come to bathe with you,” the man spat, the shadows around him flaring alongside his temper. He bore a Blessing, it was plain to see, but Talya could not tell which one. “Are you mad, woman?”

She chuckled and waved a hand in the cold air as if to swat away his offense. “Then why have you come?” she asked.

With a scoff, the man righted himself, the air settling around him. “I bear a warning for you, Talya Sabelsdottír,” he said, “one you would do well to heed.”

“A warning,” Talya echoed and gave a nod. It nearly made her roll her eyes; it was the second warning in as many interactions with strangers, which, even for a pirate, was somewhat excessive. Threats came and went on the sea, either in a promise of revenge or moments before death, yet for the hundreds Talya had heard so far, none of them had yet to make good on its promise. “Go ahead, then,” she said. “Warn me.”

For a moment, he only peered at her, searching her face for any trace of mockery. When he found none—or chose to ignore it—he raised his hand and snapped his fingers, and from the air itself, a figure spawned in his palm, like shadows given shape. They twisted and turned, pulsing in a manner almost grotesque, until they took the shape of a man dying, eerily familiar.

“Word of your actions reach far across the seas,” the stranger said and held the form out for her to see. “The gods themselves know your name, Sabelsdottír, having heard it from every wretched soul you have sent to the Halls of Hel before their time. The Valkyrja speak the names of all those who stand in your path, for they know the fate those fools will meet in battle with you.”

“I thought this was meant to be a threat,” Talya said, grinning, “but it sounds to me like flattery and praise.” For all her mirth, however, she did not look away from the figure hovering in the man’s hand, waiting, knowing what would happen to the image of the young pirate captain soon enough.

The stranger scowled beneath his hood, his fingers curling around the dying image like a cage. “You are mistaken if you believe the gods look at you with favour,” he sneered. “They see you for what you are, Sabelsdottír. Arrogant, proud, thinking yourself better than any other, even than the gods themselves. You think yourself out of their reach, and now, they demand your punishment.”

In his hand, the image of the young pirate captain died, his throat crushed by a monstrous maw. The air convulsed with his silent scream and the shape changed, shifting to take the form of a great beast, chained and cast away.

“Hel is coming for you now, oh fearsome Cardinal Sabelsdottír,” the stranger said, and for the first time since his arrival, a chill of dread went through Talya, having heard her title spoken only minutes prior by Qasim. “She comes seeking retribution against those who have spited the realm of her name. She will strike you down, bind you, and hide you away where no one can find you, until your spirit cracks and your body fades from existence.”

He squeezed his hand into a fist, smothering the image of the chained beast. The shade dispersed into the air, melding into the darkness of the night. “In the Halls of Hel, she will not let you rest,” he said. “She will twist and break your soul a thousand times over, and only after you fall to your knees and beg the gods to forgive your arrogance, she will take pity on you and feed your soul to her brother.”

In the silence that followed his words, Talya thought back to the young pirate captain she had slain for the precious Northern Star jewel. His warning had been the same, a promise of punishment at the hand of the ruler of Hel. A mere coincidence, she thought. Most of those who sailed the northern seas worshipped the same gods, thus the threat was one she had heard countless of times before. Promising punishment at the hand of Hel was as common as promising death, something pirates had a fancy for doing.

The stranger stood patient in waiting for her reply. She could sense his smugness from where she sat in the spring and knew he was pleased to have surprised her with his trick of shadows. It made her want to smile; if he believed a few harsh words would have her pleading, he did not know her well enough. “I heard Fenrir was imprisoned eons ago,” she said around a thoughtful hum. “It’d be quite a trick for Hel to feed me to that overgrown mutt as long as he is chained and muzzled.”

It was amusing, truly, how quickly the stranger’s mirth turned to ash. “You are—” he began, his voice all but aghast, but Talya did not let him continue.

“I must admit, you’re far more convincing than all the other fools who have spat the same words in my face,” she said. “Of course, they have all been the ones to die instead of me, so their promises were not all that frightening.” She leaned forward where she sat in the spring and clicked her teeth, grinning. “Perhaps I ought to make sure you follow their path. I wouldn’t want such a frightening threat to come to pass, and if your death was to prevent that, well,” she shrugged in a playful manner, “it would be an easy way out, I’d say.”

The stranger’s shoulders hunched forwards as if he was about to charge at her, the air around him flaring in his rage. “You think to mock me, bitch?” he spat and pointed a spindly thin finger at her. “You sit in your bath as if there is nothing in this world that can touch you, nothing that can hurt you and yours, but believe me, if not for the orders of my lady of death, I would bind your arms and make you watch as I tear your crew limb from limb until nothing remains but—”

Talya stood upright in the spring, rising with such momentum the water splashed around her. Startled, the stranger recoiled before he could stop himself, trodding back two steps in the snow. “Warn me if you will,” Talya said, her teeth bared and sharp, “but do not think to threaten my own. You are a stranger to these lands, to my lands and waters, allowed to go in peace only because I say you can. Should you lay a hand on me and mine,” she paused around the snarl rising from her chest, “we shall see how easily that frail body of yours cracks beneath the power of my maw.”

The stranger turned away, a silent curse slipping past his lips. “Cover yourself,” he said in a voice of contempt.

“Why?” she asked, her sneer shifting into a toothy grin. “Does my nakedness offend you? Or are you so set in your ways as a man that the sight of me has you breathless?” The cold wind nipped at her skin and made it prickle, seeping into her body to chill her bones, but she stood without shivering. Her taunt went without reply as the stranger only continued to cower from the sight of her, and she heaved a sigh of boredom and jerked her head in a dismissive motion. “Was there more to your warning, or are you done keeping me from my bath?”

A sound like a serpent’s hiss passed the man’s gritted teeth, but he drew further back into the darkness. “Three warnings you will get, Talya Sabelsdottír, and this was the first,” he said. “Heed it, or your precious crew will join the flames.”

As soon as the words left his lips, a glow of orange and yellow rose to the corner of Talya’s eye. She turned, her eyes growing wide at the sight of fire blazing beyond the hill and chasing away the night’s darkness. “What is—” she began and whirled back to the stranger, only to find him gone, with no trace of his existence lingering in his wake. The snow where he had stood was pristine and undisturbed, bearing no proof of a grown man ever having stood in it.

With a growl, Talya leaped out of the spring, taking the skin of her Blessing as soon as she touched even ground. Her bones shifted and changed, and the fur of her sabertooth form kept her warm as she bounded across the icy lands, climbing over the hill as fast as her legs could carry her.

When she reached its peak, she halted for a moment to take in the sight before her. Her ship stood aflame in the bay where they had dropped anchor, mast and sails and deck burning as if the fire had raged for hours. Her men stood at the shore, shouting amongst one another, either to call for a way to make the flames stop, or to demand the responsible reveal themselves.

Talya gritted her teeth and made her descent towards the camp they had built, the snow giving in under the weight of her Blessing’s form. Her crew noticed her quickly enough, their panic immediately retreating in her presence. They drew back, parting to let her pass to the edge of the shore, where she willed her Blessing away to once again stand as a human.

For the first time that night, she shuddered, the tremor caused by the waves of warmth radiating from her burning ship.

“Is anyone hurt?” she asked as soon as she could speak.

“No, captain,” Lárus said, bow in hand as if he expected the responsible to show themselves at any moment. “The whole of the crew is ashore.”

Talya nodded, some of her tension easing. “What happened?”

“We don’t know,” Refur said. “We were raising camp when the fire came out of nowhere.” His hands were raised to shield his eyes from the light of the flames, squinting and scowling. “There was no one to be seen around the ship or ashore, no one who could’ve done this.”

A warm weight settled over Talya’s shoulders and she turned to Qasim, who had shed his own furs to drape them over her naked frame. His smile was tight-lipped and rueful. “Our boy will go without his gift,” he said. “When the frame cracks and sinks, the Northern Star will go with it to the ocean’s depths, to be treasured only by fish and darkness.”

It was hardly the thing to worry about just then, but Talya understood. “He will have to make do with us,” she said with a half-smile. It was quick to slip from her lips when she looked at her ship again, pulling the furs more tightly around herself. She felt cold only now, in the face of the final moments of the vessel that had carried her and hers ever since they had first set sail seventeen years ago. It was more familiar to her than some of her crew, and seeing it in flames had her heart aching in her chest.

“No natural fire burns so quickly or so bright.” The men of her crew parted to give way for the vǫlva join Talya and Qasim at the edge. The beads she had tied into her hair clattered against the animal skull she wore for a mask, beneath which her eyes glittered in the light of the fires. “There flames are evil, girl,” she said to Talya and raised a hand to touch the many amulets hanging from her thin neck. “Given life by an evil Blessing.”

Talya frowned at the shaman’s words. “Has someone claimed the Blessing of Fire already?” she wondered. “Its last wielder died at sea only six moons past. A Blessing rarely trades hands so fast.”

The vǫlva shook her head. “Do not think with such a simple mind, Talya,” she said. “The Blessing of Fire is not the only one that can cause destruction in this manner.”

“I know,” Talya said and pursed her lips in thought. The choices were many, albeit few as straightforward as the Blessing that had once belonged to the Rabid Conflagration. She stared into the flames for a moment, racking her brain for a plausible answer, before deciding it was not important now. “Finish raising our camp,” she said to her men. “The journey home to Ísafjörður will be long and tiresome on foot, but we can’t build a new ship out of ice and snow. We will need all the rest we can get.”

“Yes, captain,” her men answered as one.

“Lárus will take first watch and Geir after him,” she said. “At dawn, we gather only what we need to survive, and leave this graveyard behind.” With a final glance at what had been their home, the pirates went back to the camp, muttering amongst one another and cursing their sudden loss. Talya went to Lárus before he could join the others, placing a hand on his shoulder and leaning in. “If you catch whoever did this in the night, do not kill him,” she said quietly. “Bring him to me so I can take my time with him. I want to crush every bone in his body,” she gazed at their burning ship, “starting with his legs.”

The archer gave a solemn nod, and then Talya was left alone with her husband, still barefoot in the snow. The flames danced across the water of the bay, glowing as strong as the sun. She did not like it. “These were not the lights I imagined dancing for us tonight,” she said.

Qasim chuckled, although his mirth was forced. “Weapons, gold, cloth, and herbs,” he counted. He stood close, his hands finding purchase on her waist to tug her against his chest, passing her his warmth. “We’ve lost more than just a the ship.”

Nodding, Talya ran her teeth over her lip in thought. “Weapons, gold, cloth, and herbs can always be acquired again,” she said slowly. “There are plenty of towns and villages on the way home. If I ask the people for supplies, they will give us what we need.”

“If you ask,” Qasim echoed, lips curling into a smirk. “As Talya Sabelsdottír, or as the Long-toothed Tiger of the North?”

In spite of herself, she chuckled. “I will ask as Talya,” she said slyly, “until they refuse. Then I will ask as a beast.” Her husband’s laugher eased the tension in her chest, and she shrugged out of his embrace. “Go help the men with our camp,” she said and nodded past his shoulder. “I will join you in a moment.”

“Lazy,” Qasim said with a snort, but leaned in to press a kiss against her lips. “I’ll claim the best furs if you take too long.” He turned before she could voice her retort, the gilded chains around his neck clattering as he went. She watched him leave, the smile on her lips lingering with fondness until she turned back to the burning ship.

It had begun crumbling now, the blackened wood of its deck cracking open to let in water and make it tilt, weighed down by the unsteady mast. It was a haunting sight, a ship damaged beyond repair outside of battle and slowly coming apart in the silence of the night. Soon, it would be dragged down to the seafloor, disappearing into the ocean’s blackness with no trace of its existence left for anyone to find.

“The first warning, huh,” Talya murmured to herself. “Two more still to come, and then Hel will drag me down to her halls and torment my soul for eternity.”

For a long moment, she did not move. She only watched, until her ship turned over in the bay and the flames began to die, subdued by the freezing water. Only then did she move, and as she turned away, a smile spread across her lip, sharp as a blade. She is welcome to try, Talya thought as she left the shore to join her husband and crew. With or without the dancing lights, the spirit of me and mine will not break so easily, even by the hands of our Lady of Death.

-

AY IT'S TALYA EVERYONE'S FAVORITE GIRL JHSDSHDS WE IN THE NORTH NOW, BABY *U*

ofc this is only the prologue and like we still follow ji—i mean haeseon and jihan and the august as the main characters, bUT THIS PROLOGUE IS SUCH AN EXCITING PROLOGUE BECAUSE OF ALL THE SHET THAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT AHHHHHHHHHHHH—

i've been screaming for the past tWO DAYS AND I DON'T KNOW IF I'LL BE STOPPING ANYTIME SOON BECAUSEJHSDJSHD

okay. okay, okAY, um, next week!! next week, we'll reunite with the world's ultimate songbird and his whipped captain and bestest friend aND EVERYONE ELSE AHHHHHHHH—

//dies


	2. Chapter 1 - The Dead City

As soon as the coast of Shanghai came into view over the horizon, Haeseon knew something was wrong. Through his spyglass, the city looked the same as it had upon their last visit three months prior, but an unsettling scent clung to the air, carried out to the August from inland. It was fire, undoubtedly, and something terrible that had burned along with the flames.

It can’t be an attack, Haeseon said to himself. We would’ve heard. The mariners wouldn’t have been so quiet. It was true; the king’s sailors had been particularly loud about their deeds as of late, boasting of every hanged pirate, every captured crew. If they had been so bold as to attempt a strike on the Pirate Port, the world surely would’ve known it. This scent shouldn’t be here, Haeseon thought and gripped hard onto the spyglass. It makes no sense for it to—

“Haesae?” A pair of arms curled around his waist and he lowered the glass, but he did not take his eyes off the horizon to look at his friend. “D’you see somethin’?” Seunggi asked, his voice made slurred by languor. Quiet as it was, it might’ve slipped unheard had Haeseon not felt the warm breath against his skin. “You’ve gone all tense.”

“Something’s wrong, Gi,” Haeseon said. He frowned, squinting as if it would make him see. “It smells like… like burnt steel and iron.”

The quartermaster hummed, unconvinced and drowsy so early in the morning. Dawn had only just passed, and he had reluctantly climbed to the crow’s nest with Haeseon, all the while complaining about the chill of sleeping alone. “It always smells like burnt iron,” he said and pressed his face against the small of Haeseon’s back, seeking his warmth. It had become a habit of his, one that had lasted all the six months Kyujang had been away. “The shipyards and blacksmiths never break from their work.”

“This is different,” Haeseon insisted. He liked the smell of the shipyards, but the one that clung to the air now reminded him of something far from pleasant. He recognised it, however little he wanted to; a scent like this one should never have grown so familiar, not to him nor anyone else. “Seunggi, it smells like blood and bones.”

The arms around him tightened, the quartermaster’s fingers digging into the skin of his abdomen. “Do you see fire?” he asked, the words muffled against Haeseon’s back.

“No,” Haeseon said and raised the spyglass to his eye once more. “There’s no smoke, either, but the scent is clear even out here. Something must’ve been burning not too long ago.” Someone, a small voice in the back of his head whispered, but he pushed it back whence it came and instead looked around, turning left and right in search of any possible source beside the city itself.

When he gazed out beyond starboard side, the tension in him grew tenfold at the sight of black sails on the horizon. It was a small vessel, hardly big enough for ten people to crew it, but it was quick in crossing the waves, carried towards them by the wind. “Seunggi,” Haeseon said and reached down to place his hand atop the quartermaster’s where it rested against his ribs. “Seunggi, there’s a ship coming towards us. Black sails and too small to engage in combat.” He searched for the flag at the top of the only mast, and the ominous sensation in his gut tightened. “They’re flying Shanghai’s colours.”

“Wake the others.” The drowsiness was as good as gone from Seunggi’s voice, replaced by a grimness Haeseon hated to hear. The quartermaster quickly withdrew his arms from around his waist and rose to his feet and made for the rungs leading down from the main mast. “It’s a patrol,” he said and began his descent without waiting. “Something must have happened if they’ve established a perimeter.”

Haeseon nodded and leaned out past the edge of the crow’s nest, one hand tangled in the sails’ ropes. “Ship approaching on starboard side!” he shouted down to the deck. “A patrolling vessel from Shanghai!” His voice was drowned by the sounds of the sea, and he repeated his call twice over before the rest of the crew took heed. One by one, they emerged from the companionway, shaking sleep out of their bodies and searching for the strange vessel on the sea.

“Canary!”

Upon the call, Haeseon turned and peered down towards the galleys, where Jun stood in the doorway. “Would you wake Jihan?” he asked and jerked his head towards the quarterdeck. “He didn't sleep well in the night, and if it is a patrol, we need him to be as amicable as can be.”

Haeseon nodded and threw a final gaze at the approaching ship before releasing his hold on the sails’ stay. As soon as he began to fall, feathers burst from his skin, growing quick along his arms and back until his wings were strong enough to bear his weight on the wind. His flight was still somewhat clumsy; not enough time had yet passed for his feathers to fully grow again after the strike of lightning seven months prior, and so he staggered when he landed in front of the captain’s quarters, barely catching himself on the handles of the doors.

In spite of their urgency, Haeseon was careful in entering the quarters. The room was still dark, the sun not quite strong enough to illuminate the black wood; he had to squint to make out the shape curled up under the sheets of their bed, lying dead to the world in blissful sleep. As quietly as he could, Haeseon drew up to the bed and went to his knees, allowing himself a small smile at the sight of his beloved.

Jihan was barely visible beneath the many blankets he pulled around himself whenever Haeseon left their bed for a night. In his own words, he had grown used to Haeseon’s warmth in the night, and so the captain never failed to grumble and complain whenever Haeseon went below deck to sleep with Seunggi instead. To make up for it, Haeseon had bought him two spare cloths during their last peaceful visit ashore to keep him warm whenever he missed him too much.

The captain had hardly been amused.

Yet now, Jihan looked wonderfully content within the confinements of his many overlays. Had Haeseon had a choice, he would let him continue his sleep; the skin beneath his eyes was dark with exhaustion. He hadn’t slept well for the past fortnight, after taking a hit to his left shoulder and making the weight of his prosthesis that much heavier to bear.

Ever so gently, Haeseon reached out and ran his fingers through Jihan’s hair, pushing it away from his face. It had grown; when Haeseon’s thumb stroked the soft strands at his temple, a few streaks of silver stood out between the black. “Jihan,” he whispered, warmth seeping into his anxiousness when the captain stirred, if only to turn and push more intently against his touch. “Jihan, you have to wake up.”

A groan was all he received in reply as Jihan finally opened his eyes, squinting even in the darkness of his quarters. He blinked heavily, scowling, until he recognised who had pulled him from his rest. With a soft sigh, he turned to properly face Haeseon, a slow smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Songbird,” he said, his voice thick with sleep. “What’s wrong?”

His worry must’ve been obvious on his face. “I’m sorry to wake you,” Haeseon murmured and leaned close to press his lips against Jihan’s, clinging to the brief moment of peace they still had. He reveled in the sound the captain emitted deep in his chest, a low hum of content, and only pulled away when Jihan’s hand settled against his cheek. “There is a ship approaching from Shanghai,” he said. “Seunggi says it’s a patrol.”

It took the captain’s sleep-drunk mind a moment to grasp the meaning of his words. When he did, he sighed again, albeit far more wearily. “Something must’ve happened while we were away,” he said and pushed himself upright, shuddering at the morning chill. “They only send out patrols when they need to turn strangers away.”

While he rose to sit at the edge of the bed, Haeseon reached for the prosthetic limb lying atop the bedside table, along with the cream Yeonshin still insisted he use to make it easier on his skin. “Does it still ache?” he asked as he went about spreading the ointment over the captain’s scarred shoulder. It was always Haeseon who did it, morning and evening, ever since the very first time Jihan had asked him to.

“Some,” the captain said and shrugged in the way he did when he didn’t want anyone to fret. “It was worse last night. Yeonshin has cleared it of fractures, but says the muscles are likely still sprained.”

Haeseon pursed his lips in discontent, much in the same manner he had when the surgeon had first made his assessment. “Wearing the prosthesis only makes it worse,” he said even as he raised the artificial arm towards Jihan’s shoulder and helped him tie the leather straps.

“It does,” Jihan agreed, and the conversation ended there, with Haeseon sullen and the captain resigned. It did not matter that they knew the cause of his pain; as the Black Fox of the East, Choi Jihan could hardly afford to rest as much as his injury needed him to. As soon as the prosthesis was fastened, Jihan rose to his feet and rolled his shoulders, the faintest of winces creeping across his jaw when his left side throbbed in protest. He pushed past it with only a rueful smile Haeseon’s way and went to fetch his robes where he had left them by the organ piano.

Haeseon watched him go, his gaze drifting to the ink that spread across the captain’s broad back. It had lightened some, what with their last voyage having taken them further east than the August had gone before and forcing the ink to spread itself thinner to map the new lands they had seen. Dimly, Haeseon wondered if Jihan would need more of the black liquid drawn into his skin for it to return the tattoo to its former darkness.

“Songbird.” He blinked out of his thoughts and found Jihan standing by the doors, dressed and waiting. “Do you want to stay here?” he asked. He always asked. “You’ve slept less than me, and whatever we hear from the patrol may be difficult to bear.”

In spite of the ominousness stirring in Haeseon’s chest, he pushed off their bed and went to join his beloved. “I will come,” he said and took Jihan’s hand in his own, stroking his thumb along the smooth ivory of the prosthesis. “Better to know what awaits us than to walk blinded into a city that smells of burning blood and bones.”

Jihan nodded and returned his hold, and pushed the doors open.

The patrolling ship had already reached them, crossing the waves faster due to its size. It had pulled up next to the August, looking much like a dwarf next to the grand vessel, and Daewon stood leaning over the rail, conversing with the little vessel’s captain. The whole of the crew had gathered on deck to watch the affair; Jun and Yeonshin looked over at Jihan with concern while Xiao rubbed sleep from his eyes. Lucya was calmest of them all, seated where she was on the opposite rail with her walking stick leaning against her knee. Next to her stood Hisashi, scowling at the foreign ship along with the rest of the crew, their suspicion clear as day.

Only when Haeseon peered at the foreign vessel did he notice it was not alone; beyond its sails, on the horizon, was another one of the same make, built smaller and faster than ships usually were.

It’s a barrier, he realised. They watch Shanghai’s coast for friends or foe, so that they may warn the city should something terrible come their way. The understanding came with the unsettling truth that whatever had happened to the Pirate Port, it had been dire enough to warrant such a wary line of defense.

“Jihan,” Daewon said when Haeseon and Jihan drew near. “He insists on speaking with you directly. Says the Cardinal needs to know first.”

His words did little to stay Haeseon’s dread, and the captain must’ve thought the same, if the tension to his jaw was any indication. “Pull him aboard,” he said and released his grip on Haeseon in favour of crossing his arms over his chest. Haeseon stayed back, frowning at the tremors that promptly overtook his hands in the wake of Jihan’s touch. He fidgeted, wanting to rub at his skin to make it stop, until Seunggi came up next to him and took hold of his hands, murmuring quiet words of comfort through his mask.

Don’t think about it, he told himself sternly and returned his attention to the pirate climbing aboard the August.

Daewon offered the man his hand and helped him over the rail, but the pirate did not thank him. Instead, he made straight for Jihan, the air around him grim as he saluted the captain with a deep bow. “The merchants of the Rogue Market are dead, Cardinal,” he said without so much as a greeting. “A band of soldiers from a stronghold south of Shanghai ambushed them when they were returning from a supply run a few days past.”

A chill settled over the deck of the August, one that had little to do with brisk wind of late fall. Haeseon’s eyes grew wide with shock at the news; whatever terrible things he had imagined—or struggled to not imagine—this had not been one of them. For what he knew, those who made their business at the Rogue Market in the heart of Shanghai were not pirates themselves, only merchants brave enough to trade with outlaws, thus it hadn’t crossed his mind that the scent of blood had belonged to any of them.

Seunggi’s grip on his hands became taut, near aching, but Haeseon hardly noticed.

“All of them?” Jihan asked of the stranger. From his voice alone, his tension was obvious, and the ivory of his prosthesis creaked under the pressure of it.

The pirate stood upright and shook his head, albeit with little solace. “Only one escaped with his life,” he said, “and two more were resting within the city at the time.”

When Jihan sighed, it sounded as if he had to forcibly pry his teeth apart to make way for the breath of air. “Three merchants,” he said slowly, “out of two dozen.”

“We burned the bodies in the night,” the pirate went on. He was haggard, as if he hadn’t slept for days and days. “It took us two days to gather them all, but we built a pyre for them in the Rogue Market, where they had done their trade.”

Haeseon’s brow knitted tight. It certainly explained why the air was foul with the scent of fire and death, but he could not understand why. “You burned them?” he asked before he could stop himself. “Why did you not bury them in the sea?”

The pirate’s expression tightened further still, reluctant in his answer. “The merchants were not from the sea, Harpy,” he said curtly, the words pressed out past gritted teeth. Beneath his unruly fringe, his gaze flickered to Jihan with poorly hidden nervousness. “Only sailors are to be returned to the ocean’s depths when they die.”

It sounded wrong to Haeseon’s ears, that the people who had so cheerfully and freely bartered with outlaws from all over the world would be separated from them in death. They should’ve been sent the same way as pirates went, so they wouldn’t be so alone. So the air wouldn’t bear the scent of their pyre out to sea.

“What of retaliation?” Jihan asked of the pirate before Haeseon could voice his thoughts. “Shanghai never bleeds without spilling blood in return.”

He nodded, glad to turn his attention back to the captain. “A pirate captain by the name of Shui Jianxing has sworn to lead the city’s revenge,” he said, “but should the Black Fox of the East choose to fight, he will gladly pass the charge to you. I know it.”

“Good.” Jihan was quiet in his rage, but it seeped from his skin into the air around him and made it quiver. “Where can I find him?”

“At the ashes of the funeral pyre,” the pirate said. “They plan to make for the stronghold once the sun has gone down. It stands at the shores mere hours south of Shanghai, and in the black of night, a pirate’s colours will be hidden in the sea.”

“A hail of cannonfire will break it open and expose the rats within,” Jihan said and scoffed. He fell silent for a moment, his jaw moving with the words he so clearly wanted to speak, but in the end, all he did was nod at the pirate who had brought them the warning of what awaited them in the Pirate Port. “Continue to watch over our borders,” he said. “My crew and all those who would join us will wreak vengeance on the soldiers foolish enough to strike at the heart of our city of Shanghai.”

It was a terrible promise, as was the hope the pirate drew from his words. With a grim smile to his lips, he bowed his head low once more before turning to descend back to his little ship, shouting orders to the few men crewing the vessel as he went. Aboard the August, no one said a word, every last one of them waiting for the strangers to disappear from sight.

As soon as they did, the tension cracked and gave way for a buzz of angry murmurs. “This has to be the work of the king’s sailors,” Daewon said and pushed a hand through his hair, his face twisted with contempt. “The Zhoushan stronghold has been dormant for years. They haven’t dared turn an eye on Shanghai for the past decade, knowing it to be nothing but folly on their part, but now—”

“Now Son Jukan is admiral,” Jihan spat with no small amount of venom to his voice. “Now he holds the authority to command every soldier on this side of the world to do what they have rightfully hesitated to before. That son of a bitch is—” He cut himself off and drew a steadying breath, holding the air in his lungs for three long seconds before releasing it once more. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is that we have to remind every eastern king what happens to those who lay a hand on Shanghai.”

Daewon nodded and glanced at the horizon, where the city waited. “I’m certain they still remember,” he said grimly, “or they wouldn’t have struck at a group of defenceless merchants. They are cowards still, afraid of drawing near the Pirate Port, so they waited in ambush for their chance to pick off those who couldn’t fight back.”

Chilled by the first mate’s words, Haeseon shook his head and turned away, pulling Seunggi along with him to where Yeonshin and Jun were standing. “Shanghai needs its trade for the city to prosper,” the surgeon was saying. “Pirates from all over the world tie their ships to its harbour for weeks at a time, and without the Rogue Market, the flow of gold will disrupt the city’s balance.”

“New merchants will have to take their place,” Jun said. “The people who dock here come seeking a safe haven to make trade without having to fear an attack from the mariners or the land’s soldiers. Now there will be no fresh steel or clothes for them to buy, nor medicinal herbs from inland.”

“It ain’t just the strangers that’ll go empty-handed,” Xiao said gruffly from where he sat by the rail. “The shipyards get their iron from those merchants, ‘n fabric fer the sails. It ain’t just trinkets ‘n clothes we’re losin’ by their deaths.”

The carpenter looked sadder than the rest, his shoulders hunched over his great form. Shanghai had been his home and one of the shipyards his father’s, thus he must’ve known many of the merchants who had lost their lives. The lack of Xiao’s cheeriness made the ache in Haeseon’s chest all the worse, so he drew up next to the big man and placed a hand on his shoulder in comfort. “I’m sorry, Xiao,” he said.

“Fer what, pretty bird?” the carpenter asked, but by the rueful smile on his lips, Haeseon knew he was merely attempting to shrug it off, as if he found his own sorrow out of place. “It ain’t yer fault.”

“I know,” Haeseon said, “but I’m sorry all the same.”

Xiao said nothing to that. He only emitted a quiet gruff of a sound, but smiled again when Haeseon squeezed his shoulder. However small it was, the carpenter’s smile was a thing of comfort then, amidst the restless unease hanging low over the August’s crew. Jihan and Daewon spoke lowly amongst themselves while Hisashi spat curses to those who would hear; even Lucya was on edge, tapping the butt of her cane against the deck again and again and again.

Seunggi did not let go of Haeseon for even a moment, staying so close, it was as if he would freeze with cold if he strayed too far. “I wish Kyujang was here,” he mumbled against Haeseon’s shoulder, where his gilded mask pressed into his skin.

“I know,” Haeseon said and took his hand off Xiao to instead bury it in the quartermaster’s hair, pushing the sun-blonde locks away from the scars of his brow. “I know he wishes he could be here as well.”

The closer they drew to Shanghai, the more stifling the tension became. By all means, the city looked peaceful from the sea, and perhaps it was the serenity what turned Haeseon’s stomach in knots when he knew the horrors that had happened. Blood should not be spilled outside of battle, he thought and kept the words to himself, knowing the crew would not see it the way he did. Lives should not be lost so easily.

When they pulled into the harbour, Haeseon and Seunggi joined Jihan at the bow. The scent of bones was stronger now, so much so Haeseon hardly wanted to breathe at all. He wanted to bury his face into the fabric of the captain’s robes and forget for a moment where they were sailing, but from Jihan’s side, the only distraction he found was the sight of the the very port he wanted to hide from, for which even the patrolling pirate’s warning could not have prepared him.

Shanghai had never looked so desolate.

Gone was the usual life and noise of the harbour and the narrow streets leading into its heart. There were no signs of battle anywhere to be found, yet it was as if the city had been struck with a terrible blow, killing half of those who resided within and rendering those who still remained mute. The pier was far from empty, but not one of the pirates there spoke a word, each and every one of them regarding the August’s arrival in utter silence.

All Haeseon could see were ghosts.

“It’s as if the city has died,” he said, whispering to keep from disturbing the eerie shroud that enveloped the harbour. By his side, Seunggi held tightly onto his hand, his grip all but aching.

“Shanghai is mourning, songbird,” Jihan said with a forced tone of calm. “To a city so full of loud, obnoxious outlaws, silence is what shows its tears.”

Haeseon nodded and squeezed Seunggi’s hand in his own. “Its crowds still made me nervous last time we were here,” he said, “but I liked it better with the noise. This…” He gazed out over the harbour, seeing nothing but misery and woe, and anger hidden poorly beneath the same restlessness that had plagued the August on their way. “This isn’t right,” he murmured, shuddering.

Upon noticing his tremor, Jihan shrugged out of the outermost layer of the robes he wore and draped it over Haeseon’s shoulders. “Oh,” Haeseon said and turned, intent on declining the kind gesture, but the somber look on the captain’s face made him hesitate. “Jihan—”

“I know you don’t like covering your arms and back, songbird,” Jihan said and leaned close to kiss the skin of Haeseon’s temple. His thumb brushed against the purple scars along his neck and made him shiver once more, although hardly from the chill of the autumn air. “But don’t go cold in times of sorrow. It will make it all seem worse than it already is, and I don’t like to see you so sad.”

Haeseon held his breath to catch every one of the captain’s words, spoken so softly against the dullness of his right ear. However difficult it was, he heard them all, and made him smile in spite of everything, a small curl of his lips. He reached up to cover Jihan’s hand with his own, raising it so he could press his lips against his palm. “Thank you,” Haeseon said and drew courage from the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of the captain’s lips.

By the time they had cast anchor and lowered the gangway to step ashore, every pirate in the harbour had gathered at the mouth of the docks, wide-eyed with disbelief and awe. They whispered amongst one another, and Haeseon could easily imagine what they said; their arrival in the wake of the attack was a mere coincidence, but to those who dwelled in Shanghai, it must’ve looked like the Eastern Cardinal had sailed their way only for the sake vengeance on those who had wronged their city.

The crowd parted to let them through, bowing deeply when Jihan walked past. “He has come,” some of them whispered while others cursed the sorry fate of the soldiers who had been foolish enough to strike within the reach of the Black Fox of the East. The restlessness changed slowly, morphing into something more menacing, more spiteful, a terrible anticipation for the night to come.

Haeseon did not know which one was worse.

The narrow streets grew more crowded the closer to the Rogue Market they came, the pirates pressing themselves against the walls of the tall buildings to let them pass undisturbed. There was a commotion ahead, someone shouting indistinctly and the crowd agreeing as one, but every man grew silent as soon as they noticed who had come, slinking back until the street to the Rogue Market had cleared before them.

The square went silent as a crypt the instant Jihan stepped out of the shadows. If possible, the pirates here were more shocked than the ones in the harbour, some of them staring at the captain as if they couldn’t believe their own eyes. In their shock, Jihan took his time in looking around the square, and Haeseon did the same, his heart sinking.

Gone were the stalls and tents and the people who had raised them. The square was unbearably quiet, with no one to call out their wares and no one shouting for whatever items they wanted to buy. There was only silence, even amidst the dozens of pirates scattered about what had once been the Rogue Market. The cobblestones were covered with a layer of ash, all that remained of the funeral pyre where the merchants had been laid to rest.

“Cardinal.” A tall man pushed his way out of the crowd, bowing with so much vigour his long hair nearly came undone from the sloppy knots at his neck. “‘S a relief to see you,” he said, his words laden with the heavy accent of the northernmost reaches of the Ming Empire. “The winds are good to have brought you here at this time. ‘M Shui Jianxing, captain of the Sea Snake.” He bowed again, loathe to meet the captain’s eyes. “Have you heard of the ambush on our merchants?”

“I have,” Jihan said and nodded, waiting for the pirate to stand upright. “I heard you had planned to lead the retaliation.”

A frantic look crossed the man’s face and he bowed for the third time. “I had,” he said, “but if our Cardinal has come to Shanghai to take vengeance, I’ll be glad to stand aside. My power‘s nothin’ compared to that of yours, Black Fox.”

All around them, the pirates in the crowd nodded, muttering amongst one another, each of them obvious in their want for Jihan to be the one to lead. The captain ignored them all, uncaring of their reverence. “Tell me what you know of the soldiers and their stronghold,” he said to Jianxing, who bowed one more time before beckoning them towards the corner of the square so they could speak.

Haeseon went to follow, but before he could take more than a few steps, Seunggi released his hand and disappeared from his side for the first time since descending from the crow’s nest at dawn. “Seu—quartermaster,” Haeseon called, forgetting himself and where they were, but Seunggi did not look back, pushing his way through the crowd. With a glance at the rest of the crew, Haeseon followed after his friend, tense with nerves as he moved past the silent, staring pirates. “Quartermaster.”

Seunggi didn’t even slow down enough for him to catch up, and far too late, Haeseon realised where he was going.

The whole of the Rogue Market was empty on merchants’ tents, but at the very edge of the square, the absence of a little stall was a far more dreadful sight than the rest. There were no stools for the customers and no lines of handmade shoes of straw, and no old woman, thin as reed, to sell them.

“Oh gods,” Haeseon whispered, his stomach turning with horror. “Oh gods, they can’t have—she was only—” The words wouldn’t come, the thought of the sweet Lady Changying, who had sold him his shoes, having met the same fate as the others. Next to him, Seunggi stood still as stone. “Sh-she must be resting, Gi, the patrol said some of the merchants had been resting. She—this doesn’t have to mean anything, she must simply be—”

Someone in the crowd around them scoffed, the sound utterly without glee. “Yer lyin’ to yourself, brat,” a pirate said harshly, spitting on the ground by his feet. “Lady Straw was found with the others. She’d gone to the fields outside the city to get straw for her sandals.” His face twisted in contempt behind his matted beard. “She wanted to return with the rest,” he said, “but on their way back, the soldiers bore down on the lot of ‘em.”

A clot of abhorrence formed in Haeseon’s throat, sickened as he was by the man’s words. “But she was harmless,” he pressed out, clutching at the loose sleeves of the robes Jihan had give him. His hands were trembling once more. “She was an old woman, she was—she could barely walk, they wouldn’t have—”

“They would’ve, ‘n they did,” the pirate bit out. “No one would’a thought her a merchant for pirates ‘n scum alike, but those sons ‘a bitches saw her in the others’ company ‘n did what they do best.” He looked down and scuffed the heel of his boot against the cobblestones. “She burned with her sandals. She can sell ‘em to the other ghosts now.”

A chill settled in Haeseon’s lungs and made it difficult to draw breath. He wrung the robes in his hands until the fabric threatened to tear, struggling to find the warmth and comfort Jihan had promised him alongside the garb. Nausea roiled in the pit of his stomach and he wanted to leave, suffocated as he was by the ash on the ground, on the buildings, in the air, the remnants of the dead.

He reached for Seunggi’s hand and startled when he found it trembling like his own, only the quartermaster’s tremors were born out of the strength with which he clenched his fists. He was breathing sharply through his mask, his good eye wide and swimming with tears as he stared at where Lady Changying had always sat.

Aching, Haeseon pulled his friend into his arms and guided him to hide his face in the crook of his neck, shielding him from the pirates crowding them on all sides. “I’m here, Gi,” he murmured against Seunggi’s ear, his lips catching on the edge of the gilded mask Kyujang had made for him. “You’re not alone. I’m here.”

The quartermaster’s grip was painful when he took hold of Haeseon’s shoulders, as if he was afraid he might fade into nothingness if he held him any lighter. “See? I’m not going away,” Haeseon said softly, ignoring the way his muscles protested at his friend’s harsh grip. “We’re all still here. Let’s find Jihan, shall we? Jihan will know what to do.”

It took a world of effort to coax Seunggi into moving, his feet dragging clumsily over the ashen cobblestones. The pirates around them parted to let them pass, some mumbling in voices of distaste, but with the Eastern Cardinal so close, they did not dare do anything else but give way. Haeseon ignored them all, uncaring of their haughty eyes, and concentrated only on leading Seunggi’s way.

When they reached the crew, Jihan, Daewon, and Xiao were engaged in discussion with Shui Jianxing, the carpenter speaking in stead of the pirate captain when he lost his words in the tongue of Joseon. “The soldiers weren’t of the king’s sailor’s,” Xiao was saying while Jianxing spoke quickly in the language of the Ming Empire, “but a mariner warship was spotted in the area ‘round their stronghold a few days ‘fore the ambush. ‘S likely they’re the ones behind the attack.”

“As we thought,” Daewon said while Jihan remained silent, contemplative. “But why wouldn’t they see through the ambush themselves? Where is the warship now?”

Haeseon led Seunggi away from them, not wanting to disrupt their planning. “Yeonshin,” he called quietly, drawing the surgeon’s attention away from the discussion. He glanced their way and startled at the sight of the quartermaster, and immediately left the others to come help.

“What happened?” he hissed, alarm flickering across his face as he looked Seunggi up and down, hesitant to touch him in his state of tension.

“There was a merchant he would visit every time we docked here,” Haeseon said quietly, as if the quartermaster would not hear him. “She was—when the soldiers came, they—” He could not speak the words, partly due to Seunggi’s state and partly due to his own. 

Yeonshin nodded all the same and carefully placed his hands on the quartermaster’s shoulders. “Easy,” he crooned when Seunggi flinched. “Easy, Gi, it’s only me. It’s Yeonshin. Do you know my voice?” He waited until Seunggi gave a stiff nod, his face still pressed against Haeseon’s neck. “Good. I’m going to drape my robes over your head so you won’t have to see anything you do not want to. Is that alright?”

It was slow work, coaxing the quartermaster into easing his grip on Haeseon and standing upright. The surgeon spoke to him in hushed words, all with the practiced patience from the times he had guided Kyujang out of his fits of panic. He placed himself between Seunggi and the pirates flocking the square, gently urging him to breathe right and ease out of his tension while Haeseon rubbed soothing circles into his neck.

By the time they managed to convince Seunggi to sit down on the low window frame of one of the buildings at the edge of the market square, Jihan pulled away from his discussion, having heard all he needed. “The southern shipyards will provide us with whatever ammunition we may need,” he said to his crew. “We’re welcome to their stock of gunpowder and cannonballs, provided we swear to leave the stronghold burning in our wake.”

His men gave a firm reply, their anxiousness quick to fade in the face of their captain’s certainty. “We sail at nightfall,” he said and jerked his head at Jianxing, who stood with his crew. “They will accompany us as reinforcements, should we need it. If you need anything from the city to prepare yourselves, now’s the time to seek it out. Rest if you will, for there will be none of it in the night.”

“Aye, captain,” his crew answered as one before scattering, breaking off into groups of two or three to go do whatever they needed to in preparation for the night’s raid. Haeseon lingered with Yeonshin and Seunggi, who could hardly make the trek back to the ship in his condition.

As soon as he noticed his brother’s state, Jihan made his way over, throwing a warning look at the pirates surrounding them before sinking to his knees before Seunggi. “What happened to you?” he asked in a whisper, reaching up to take the quartermaster’s face in his hands. “Look at me, quartermaster. What happened?”

Behind his mask, Seunggi parted his lips and closed them again without emitting a single sound, tears springing to his good eye once more, so while Yeonshin continued to soothe him, Haeseon leaned down to tell Jihan what had happened, speaking softly so Seunggi wouldn’t have to hear it again. The captain’s face grew hard for every word he heard, his calm facade cracking in the face of his brother’s anguish.

“They will pay for what they did,” he said when Haeseon was done, his thumb stroking the skin beneath Seunggi’s eye. “By my hand or by yours, they will pay. Do you understand?”

The quartermaster blinked, the frantic look of him retreating, if only by a fraction. Slowly, he nodded his head as best he could in his brother’s hands, swallowing against the thickness in his throat. “They will pay,” he rasped and nodded again when Jihan did.

“They will pay,” the captain echoed and leaned close to press his brow against Seunggi’s. He remained like that for a long moment, until the quartermaster’s breathing finally began to grow even. “Take him back to the ship,” he told Yeonshin. “Give him Sleeper’s Draught and let him rest in my quarters. I’ll come watch over him as soon as I’m done in the city.”

Yeonshin nodded and helped Seunggi to his feet while Jihan turned to Haeseon, reaching for his hand and stopping himself mere inches short. He looked tired, far more tired than he had when Haeseon had woken him a mere hour before. “Will you join us when we storm the stronghold, songbird?” he asked, firm in spite of his exhaustion. “We are not going there to frighten the soldiers or intimidate them into submission. We are going to take vengeance, and we’re going as killers.”

Even after months and months, Jihan always asked.

Haeseon pressed his lips together and nodded in spite of the dread in his chest. “I will come,” he said. He glanced to where Yeonshin was helping Seunggi walk, needing only one look at his friend to make his choice. “I won’t kill any of them, but I want to come all the same. For…” The quartermaster’s name was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t speak it, not here, where so many could hear it. “For his sake.”

Jihan needed nothing more to understand. “Yes,” he murmured and finally took Haeseon’s hand. “For him.”

-

………. well ain’t this a lovely start.

i mean wHERE IS ALL THE FLUFF HUH???? WHAT IS THIS MOROSE ANGSTY GLOOMY SHET EH?!?!?? WHY ARE PEOPLE DEAD WHAT THE FUCK WHERE’S THE HAPPY PIRATE LIFE WHY IS EVERYONE SAD???? WE LITERALLY GET NO HAPPY TIMES BEFORE THINGS START GOING TO HECK WOW THIS IS GREAT I’M SO—

me @ me: literally what the fuck >:(

okay but like i don't know what happened i tried to put in as many cute moments as i could but it ended up sO SAD????? oh my god and when i think about what's to come, what the hell, can they just heck off to the north already and be all happy with talya because this sUCKS >:T

NEXT WEEK. MORE GLOOMY SHET. YAY. >:T


	3. chapter 2 - No Innocent Life

As soon as the sun had disappeared beyond the horizon, they set sail.

“The Zhoushan stronghold lies only a few hours south from here,” Daewon called to the crew from his position at the helm. “The fortress stands directly by the shore, with only a row of empty docks standing between it and the sea. We’ll draw as close as we can and fire from the pier. Its walls will be easy to crack open with a hail of cannonfire.”

Next to him, Jihan nodded his agreement. “As soon as we’ve blasted an opening in the wall, we will storm the stronghold,” he said, “and once every man within lies dead or dying, we will set the fortress aflame and leave it burning for the king’s sailors to find their way to the soldiers’ grave.”

The idea had come to the captain only as an afterthought, when they had been carrying ammunition from the shipyards to the August. He had noticed a stack of oil barrels in the corner, and asked to take them as well so that they could show the mariners what was done to those who died on land by a pirate’s hand.

“They will learn,” Jihan promised, his right hand fiddling restlessly with the hilt of one of the daggers at his waist. “By the stench of burning flesh, they will learn to keep away from our kind.”

While his crew cheered with morbid anticipation, Haeseon did his best to not let the captain’s words take shape in his mind, the image far too gruesome for his liking. He shuddered where he sat in the crow’s nest, pulling Jihan’s robes more firmly around his shoulders. Without Seunggi to cling to him and share his warmth, the autumn chill pricked at his skin as soon as the sun had gone, swallowed by the sea.

The quartermaster was sleeping within the captain’s quarters, still recovering from his dreadful shock. As instructed, Yeonshin had given him a few drops of Sleeper’s Draught to help him find rest, just enough to keep him under for the few hours it would take them to reach their destination. When Haeseon had visited him, he had looked at peace, clutching Jihan’s pillow to his chest while he pressed his face against Haeseon’s for comfort.

Careful to not disturb his slumber, Haeseon had pressed a gentle kiss against the scars framing the quartermaster’s left eye and murmured, “Please don’t be sad, Gi, 

Seunggi had only snored in reply, but it had been enough to make Haeseon smile.

Now, as they headed for the unsuspecting soldiers still residing within the Zhoushan stronghold, a smile was the last thing Haeseon could fathom doing. He held tightly onto his bow, clutching and easing his grip to keep the blood flowing steadily and stave off his tremors. They would always come to him when his muscles grew too loose, and it was hardly something he could afford that night.

He had worked for months and months with Lucya to properly work the bow again after the strike of lightning had left his hands quivering out of his control. The bow was the only weapon he knew and the only one he was brave enough to wield, thus he had pushed his body to persist through the tremors until he learned how to make them scarce. Much like she had when first shown him how to use the bow in battle, Lucya had taught him patience, to wait until the trembling ceased and then taking his aim.

“For a perfect arrow, you must wait,” she had told him long before the tremors had come, and she had said it again in his moments of frustration, when he’d gone hours without finding proper aim.

Haeseon had since learned to bide his time, even if the tremors began after he had already drawn his arrow. He could do his duty in battle, however painful it was for him.

The closer they came to their destination, the heavier the restlessness of the August’s crew became. The lot of them brimmed with an eerie kind of hunger, born out of the desire for vengeance against those who had dared strike at the only haven pirates knew in the east. On the deck, Hisashi polished the edges of his swords with whetstone and cloth while Yeonshin counted bullets and gunpowder for his pistols. The others ran back and forth along the starboard side, stacking cannonballs and preparing every cannon for the onslaught they would release upon the fortress.

It’s all for Lady Changying, Haeseon told himself in an attempt to stave off his uncertainty. And for Seunggi.

Seunggi woke when they had been at sea for a bit over two hours, soon to come upon the Zhoushan stronghold. He did not join Haeseon in the crow’s nest; instead, he stood by Jihan, wearing his masks and gripping tightly at the hilts of his thin blades. His gaze was set on the horizon, as if he could already see the soldiers who had hurt his own.

When they deemed the ship close enough to the coast, Jihan ordered every lantern or burning candle to be doused so as to not give away their approach. With the black wood of the ship and the dark sails, the lack of light shrouded them in the night’s darkness and hid them from the eyes of any lookout the stronghold might’ve had.

Not soon after, Haeseon caught sight of flickering lights on the horizon and climbed down from the crow’s nest to warn the others. “We’ve arrived,” he said, clutching the grip of his bow. “There is light shining from the windows and atop the fortress. The soldiers are still there.”

“Good,” Jihan said and turned to his crew. “Brace yourselves, men. As soon as the walls go down, we charge.” The pirates replied in silence, nodding or raising their fists, their restless anticipation flaring. Content, Jihan turned to his brother and placed a hand on his shoulder, murmuring a few quiet word, to which Seunggi shook his head.

“I don’t want him to see,” the quartermaster said stiffly, refusing to look away from the stronghold.

Jihan frowned at his words, but nodded all the same and gave Seunggi’s shoulder a squeeze before turning away. “Songbird,” he said, a touch of worry settling over his brow as he glanced down at Haeseon’s hands. “Are you still certain you want to go ashore?”

The best Haeseon managed was a grimace of a smile, every bit as tense as he felt and hardly reassuring. “Yes,” he said all the same. “I want to go.”

Although his apprehension was clearly mirrored on the captain’s face, Jihan nodded and looked around. “Yeonshin,” he called and beckoned the surgeon. “You stay with the songbird, alright? The whole of the crew can’t stay together once inside, but ensure no one goes alone.”

“Will do,” Yeonshin said and sent a smile Haeseon’s way, proper in contrast to his own grimace. “I’ll take care of your pretty canary.”

Had Haeseon been a man of pride, he might’ve scoffed at the thought of having to be taken care of, or the notion that Jihan believed he required company where they were going. He was not, however, and only felt relief at the surgeon’s promised companionship. “Thank you,” he said, although he did nudge Yeonshin in the ribs for his teasing words. “I won’t slow you down.”

“I know,” the surgeon said, as if as much was a given.

No one said a word after that. Every last one of the pirates held their tongue, whether they waited to fire the cannons or to simply go ashore, but the air around them spoke volumes. They all wanted this, Haeseon knew, they craved it, and it made his stomach turn.

Just as Daewon had said, the stronghold stood at the very shore, built at the mouth of grand docks that had surely once hosted an array of warships, both flying the colours of the king’s sailors and that of the Empire of Ming. The fortress’ walls were thick with stone, braziers burning atop every corner. Within the mounds, the roof of the main quarters rose higher than the rest, and the candlelight burning within gave away the soldiers’ position in their rest.

“Take us all the way to the docks,” Jihan murmured to Daewon. “Ready on the claws. As soon as we are secure, we begin our attack.”

Haeseon forced himself to breathe deep and calm in waiting, his heart thudding rapidly in his chest. His hands trembled to and fro around the grip of his bow, every exhale triggering another tremor, each of which grew worse the closer they drew to the piers.

“Brace yourselves,” Jihan called when they were moments away from colliding.

Without slowing down, Daewon steered the August harshly against the docks, the ship’s starboard side crashing against the sturdy wood with a crackling noise and a spray of water. The August quaked from the impact, and without letting the momentum falter, the first mate grabbed hold of the lever to the hooks in their hull and pulled.

With a sharp whistle, the metallic claws came free from their locks and cleaved into the docks, digging deep through wood and pillar, and clinging to it, pinning the August in place. As soon as they were stuck, Jihan raised his voice and shouted, in a voice loud enough to be heard through the stronghold’s walls, “All guns, fire!”

Haeseon only had time to cover his ears before all hell broke loose.

Eight cannons fired as one, hurling their projectile at the stone walls in a deafening chorus. The mounds cracked open, every hit of the cannonballs breaking its bricks asunder, and by the time the soldiers within could realise what was happening, the second wave of fire had already begun.

“Give them no time to prepare!” Jihan called once the echoes of cannonfire had settled, ignoring the shrill sound of a warning bell coming from within the fortress. “Hisashi, Xiao, Raji, bring down the eastern wall! The rest of you, break their gates open!”

Every cannonball hit deeper into the stone than the last, spreading the cracks further and wider until the entire facade began to crumble. The bricks split and caved, and when the fifth wave of fire smashed against the mounds, the wall gave in. The stone burst open, blasted out of place and crumbling until a gaping hole was left open and unguarded, a direct entry to the courtyard and the main quarters.

“We’re through!” Jihan shouted at the same time as the gates split open, its bars destroyed by cannonfire. All around him, the pirates cheered, ringing their swords in a shrill chorus. “Seunggi, lead half the men through the wall. The rest of you, with me! And bring the oil!”

Like a tidal wave, the crew leapt off the ship and onto the damaged docks, led to the stronghold’s gates by the two brothers of the sea. There were only two dozen of them, but to Haeseon, they looked like two hundred, a black wave of death racing to claim every victim it could.

“Come on, Haeseon,” Yeonshin said and moved to follow the rest, pistols in hand. He was still smiling, a bitter kind of glee framing the curl of his lips as he disembarked and beckoned Haeseon to join him. “

With regret clawing at his chest, Haeseon sent a fleeting look at Jun and Lucya, who would stay behind, one by choice and one forced to; Lucya’s knee had never fully recovered and hindered her from walking right. She looked all but bored where she stood by the helm, as if displeased she could not partake in the horrible act of invasion. When she noticed Haeseon’s gaze, she nodded her head and smiled at him, yet for all the warmth in the gesture, Haeseon’s chest remained cold as ice.

Once through the hole in the wall, Haeseon had to grind his teeth together to not let slip the sound of distress rising to his lips. Plenty of soldiers had died in the hail of cannonfire alone, their bodies crushed beneath chunks blasted from the stone walls. Others had fallen by the pirates’ hands, wounds carved into their chests or throat to spill their life’s blood.

No matter how many times Haeseon saw a sight like this one, it never grew easier.

He followed Yeonshin into the main fort, keeping an arrow nocked and ready at all times. The stronghold was full of the sounds of battle, screams and curses and the ring of steel rising from every corner. Blood led their way as they went, the corpses of soldiers left in the wake of Seunggi’s charge serving as their guide. They met no resistance in their approach, until they reached a crossing in the corridor, one turning right while the other continued straight.

There was no time to decide which way to go; as soon as they reached the split, two soldiers came running around the corner, swords in hand. As soon as they saw Yeonshin and Haeseon, they charged, shouting in the tongue of the Empire of Ming and swinging their blades. With every muscle drawn taut in dread, Haeseon raised his bow, but before he could as much as begin to draw his arrow, Yeonshin fired his pistols.

One of the bullets buried itself in the first soldier’s eye while the other hit the second soldier’s side. The first one crumbled as if he’d been made of paper, and the other fell hard against the floor with a cry of pain, gasping and clutching at his abdomen. Calm as ever, Yeonshin stepped over the dead soldier, pushing a new slug into the mouth of his pistol. “You do not want to see this, Haeseon,” he said and took aim. “Look away.”

Haeseon did as told just as he fired again, shooting the dying soldier through the back of his head to take him out of his suffering. The sound made Haeseon wince, but when he looked up again and found the surgeon peering at him in an apologetic manner, he pretended as if he couldn’t feel the dread clawing at his chest. “Let us continue,” he pressed out through gritted teeth.

Yeonshin’s smile was sympathetic and utterly void of remorse. “Let’s,” he said, and they were off again.

They followed the sounds of battle to find the rest of the crew, moving through whatever remained in the path Seunggi’s charge had taken. No soldier crossed their path for several minutes, which Haeseon was grateful for; all around them, the cries of battle reigned strong, but for the moment at least, the two of them were left blissfully alone.

Before long, they turned a corner and found Daewon seated on the stone floor, leaning heavily against the wall and clutching at his arm, blood seeping past his fingers. At the end of the hallway, Hisashi was pacing back and forth in impatience, having clearly been told to guard the first mate from any stray soldiers that may come their way.

“One of the soldiers wielded a spear,” Daewon said by way of greeting, offering the two a tight smile as they drew near. “His reach was far longer than mine.” He nodded at a corpse not far from where he sat, a polearm resting in his limp hand. “He nicked my arm faster than I did his throat.”

“Are you alright?” Haeseon asked with worry etched deep while Yeonshin went to his knees by the first mate, sighing as he batted away his hands to take over. The surgeon was utterly without distress, seeming exasperated rather than alarmed by the injury.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Daewon said and waved a bloodied hand around. “I have only myself to blame. I’m still a bit slow after,” he gestured at his chest, where scars left by fire marred his skin, “you know.”

Haeseon parted his lips to protest his self-blame, but Hisashi spoke before he had the chance. “If you’re here, I will continue,” he barked, all but bouncing on the balls of his feet in impatience. “Get him back to the ship!”

With that, he was gone, likely to hunt down whatever prey still remained in the fortress. Yeonshin clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes, but said nothing of the swordsman’s manners. Instead, he turned to Haeseon. “Will you come with us?” he asked. “Back to the August.”

Haeseon wanted nothing more than to join them and leave, but a nagging part of him chided him for even considering it; he had done nothing to contribute the vengeance they were here to wreak. Returning to the ship so soon would make him the same as a frightened little rat. He knew no one would turn a wrong eye on him for it—perhaps with the exception of Hisashi—yet even so, it felt like a coward’s choice.

“No,” he said and reassured his grip on the bow. "I will go with Hisashi. I’ll follow him.” Both Yeonshin and Daewon looked skeptical to say the least, but Haeseon took off before they could protest. “Be safe,” he called over his shoulder and turned the corner the swordsman had left.

In spite of Hisashi’s head start, picking up his trail was easy enough. Discontent as it made him, Haeseon followed the trail of blood left in the swordsman’s wake, delving deeper into the stronghold. It was quieter now. The warning bell had stopped ringing, its toller likely dead or dying. The pirates’ cries of battle had ebbed out alongside the soldiers’ numbers; now, the crew was likely hunting down whomever still remained, or preparing to douse the fortress in oil.

A sharp cry erupted from some ways ahead of him, echoing through the hallways. “There he is,” Haeseon said to himself, deeming the foreign voice and its owner a likely victim of Hisashi’s aggression. He picked up his speed so he wouldn’t miss him, all the while bracing himself for the toil that would be keeping up with the swordsman.

When he rounded the next corner, it was not Hisashi he found, but a foreign soldier leaning against the wall. He was cradling his leg, the limb bleeding from the knee, which looked like it had been impaled. His pain was clear as day, but when he noticed Haeseon, he spat out a curse and reached for his sword, holding it clumsily in his hand.

With a rush of dread, Haeseon raised his bow and aimed. “Stand down,” he said, taking two steps back as he drew his arrow. His voice came out far less commanding than intended, and the soldier must’ve thought so as well, for he only advanced, countering Haeseon’s words with sharp ones of his own, spoken in a foreign tongue. “I mean it, sir, stand down or I will shoot.”

His own threat made the dread in him flare, and as if summoned by his turmoil, a tremor came to his left hand to impair his aim and throw it off. “Stop,” he said. Whether it was meant of himself or the soldier, he did not know. Whichever way it was, the soldier ignored him and continued forwards, clumsy in his approach. “Stop.”

The soldier did not stop, and when he drew too close to Haeseon’s fright to bear, he released his arrow in spite of his tremors. The bolt hissed through the air and struck the wall right next to the soldier’s arm, startling him enough to send him staggering backwards and almost falling over on behalf of his injured leg.

With every cell of him crying out in panic, Haeseon drew another arrow and took aim, his breath passing gritted teeth as a whistle. “Stay back,” he bit out, only to be ignored once again. As soon as he recovered from his shock, the soldier advanced on him again, shouting foreign words and swinging with his sword while he pressed one hand against the wall for balance. Haeseon retreated in time with his approach, keen on keeping as much of a distance between them as he could. “Stay back, please, sir, or I’ll shoot!”

He was biding his time now, waiting, hoping for the tremors in his hands to stop. They always did, Lucya had showed him they always did, so he waited, backing up along the hallway and struggling to keep his wits about him. The soldier looked crazed, shouting without pause and limping closer in spite of the pain plaguing him, as if he couldn’t ever imagine giving up.

Haeseon retreated until his back hit the wall, and as soon as it did, his hands stilled and his aim became clear. He did not hesitate then, but took the opportunity when he had it, and fired an arrow through the soldier’s hand.

The iron head of the bolt buried itself in the wall and pinned the soldier to it, right where he had braced his palm against the wall for stability. He screamed, the sword falling to the floor with a clatter, both sounds of which cleaved through Haeseon’s chest and made him wish his deafness would spread to the other side as well. “I’m sorry,” he whispered and hurried past the soldier, his voice shrill and thin. “I’m sorry, sir, I’m so sorry.”

The man never stopped his incessant shouting, not when he gripped at the wrist of his trapped hand, not when he turned and reached for Haeseon, attempting to grab him, to catch him. He continued screaming, even when Haeseon jerkily bowed his head in apology before turning and running, desperate to get as far away from the soldier as possible.

His cries echoed through Haeseon’s mind, waking the memory of another voice just like theirs, loud with pain and pleading. It was the scream that still haunted Haeseon’s dreams and had him jerking awake in the middle of the night, shuddering in remembrance of an all-consuming anger and the damage it had caused.

“Stop it,” he begged of his heart where it beat in his throat, making it hard to swallow or breathe. “I had to, I gave him a chance but he wouldn’t listen. I had to.”

Around the grip of his bow, his hands no longer trembled.

Haeseon found no comfort for the remainder of his search, guided as he was by dead bodies all dressed in the same uniforms as the soldier he had left behind. They were bleeding still, the pools of red framing their bodies growing even as he ran past. “Breathe,” he said loudly and forced himself to comply. “Breathe, Yun Haeseon, and endure.”

When he finally found Hisashi, whatever semblance of calm he had managed to find went hurtling right back out of his mind. The swordsman was in the process of pulling his blades free from the ravaged corpse of a soldier, and as soon as he did, he turned and advanced on a figure cowering in the corner of the hall.

It was a woman, naked but for the sheet she clutched to her chest. She scrambled and pushed herself more firmly against the wall upon Hisashi’s approach, eyes wide with terror as she attempted to get further away from him than was possible. Just like the soldiers, the woman spoke in the tongue of the Empire of Ming, but even though the words made little sense to Haeseon’s ears, her plea was obvious.

Her hair was blue with roots of black, and with a thrill of nausea, Haeseon thought back to what Jihan had told him months and months ago, in an alleyway of Shanghai after freeing him from the hands of three pirates.

“Whores paint their hair in the east. Yellow, blue, white, whichever colour draws the most attention from their customers.”

The woman cowering before Hisashi’s blade was a prostitute, nothing more than a call girl summoned to the stronghold to entertain the soldiers within. She was not a soldier, nor did she support the soldier’s claim, yet the swordsman advanced on her with clear intent to kill.

“Hisashi,” Haeseon shouted just as he raised his blade, drawing his attention away before he could see through his gruesome act. “What are you doing?”

“The fuck does it look like I’m doing?” Hisashi barked without taking his eyes off the woman. “I found this bitch together with one of the bastards who dared lay a hand on Shanghai. I killed him, and now I’m going to kill her.”

“That—you can’t,” Haeseon said and moved up next to the swordsman, gingerly dodging the pools of blood on the floor. “She has done nothing for which she should be killed!”

Hisashi merely scoffed, as if he found Haeseon’s words utterly ridiculous. “Fuck off,” he spat and took another step towards the woman, whose pleas grew louder still. She clasped her hands in front of her and bowed, groveling, reaching for the swordsman’s feet, and when Hisashi kicked her to drive her back against the wall, Haeseon lashed out and grabbed hold of his hand. “What the fuck—”

“Stop it, Hisashi,” Haeseon said in a voice far braver than he felt. “She is innocent to us, don’t you see? She had no part in—”

“Do you think I fucking care if she played a part or not?” Hisashi said loudly and attempted to shake him off, but Haeseon only tightened his grip. “She served them as their whore! ‘S more than enough for me!”

“It’s not!” Haeseon bit back, struggling to hold on while the swordsman did his best to pry his arm out of his hands. “I’m not going to let you take an innocent life!”

“You’re not going to let me?” A rueful laugh spilled from Hisashi’s lips, the sound filled with nothing but ire and anger. “If you think you have even a chance to stop me, you’re—hey!”

In the heat of their argument, the woman had slipped away from her corner, and with Haeseon holding onto the swordsman’s arm, she took her chance where she saw it. Foregoing the sheet, she bolted, scrambling to find a pace and running down the hallway before disappearing around a corner.

Haeseon’s relief lasted only for a moment, with Hisashi shoving him back with enough force to send him staggering into the wall. “Fuck,” the swordsman barked. He glared after the woman, teeth bared in an animalistic snarl, one that only deepened when he turned on Haeseon. “You’re going to fucking regret that.”

His threat had Haeseon’s grip around his bow tightening, but all Hisashi did was spit at the floor by Haeseon’s feet before turning and storming off, every step heavy with his ire. Defiant, Haeseon glared after him, only to immediately deflate once he was out of sight, sighing as he leaned back against the wall. Exhaustion fell heavy over his shoulders and made the choice to return to the August far easier than it had been before.

“At least she lived,” he said to himself as he walked through the desolate hallways, knowing he had done the right thing. “That is all that matters.”

He took a path to avoid the soldier he had trapped and found his way out of the fortress without encountering another. By the emptiness of the shore, the others were still inside, but Haeseon did not feel like waiting for them to come out. Instead, he made for the ship, his limbs heavy as he climbed up the side of the August and over the rail.

Upon the noise he made, Jun appeared in the infirmary doorway. “Welcome home, canary,” he said and came over to help him board. “Are you alright?”

Grateful that the cook did not ask why he had returned before the others, Haeseon gave a small smile and nodded. “Barely,” was all he said as he took a seat on the rail, but Jun nodded all the same, as if he truly understood. “Did Yeonshin and Daewon return?”

“Yes.” The cook pursed his lips in discontent and threw a glance at the infirmary, where the lanterns were burning. “That fool let himself be hurt again,” he said with an air of worry-mixed petulancy. “Every time he goes to battle, he promises me he won’t be hurt, only to come back bleeding every time.”

Had the mood been lighter, Haeseon might’ve pointed out it was hardly every time that the first mate came back from battle bearing injuries severe enough to require the needle and thread. However, with his own worry for the crew still inside brimming steadily in his chest, he could hardly fault the cook for his concern.

From the helm, Lucya peered at him with mild interest, her gaze flickering from Haeseon’s face to the bow in his hand and back again in silent question. How did you do? it felt like she was asking, and Haeseon, still shaken from his encounter with the lone soldier, pressed his lips together and gave a stiff nod in reply.

It wasn’t long before the rest of the crew emerged from the stronghold. Xiao and Seunggi came first, with the quartermaster looking far calmer than he had upon their arrival. He was unharmed as far as Haeseon could tell, walking easily and nodding at something the carpenter was saying, the big man grinning in a far too cheerful manner for what they had just done. After them came Hisashi, still fuming, and finally, Jihan stepped out past the broken gates, a flaming torch in hand as he guided those of his crew who carried the oil barrels. They were leaving a heavy trail of the black liquid in their path, spilling it just about everywhere they could reach on their way out.

When they were done, the pirates retreated to join the others while Jihan remained at the head. “Let this be a lesson to those who would target Shanghai,” he said solemnly to the dulled agreement of his crew, and without another word, he tossed the torch onto the trail of oil.

The flames spread like wildfire, racing across the black liquid into the stronghold. It rose quickly from within, and before long, the whole of the fortress stood burning. Haeseon watched the flames with unease, remembering the fires of the Rabid Conflagration clutching to the first August until it cracked and sank into the sea.

“Easy,” a voice murmured behind him, and he turned to find Daewon standing in the doorway of the infirmary, shuddering, wide-eyed as he stared into the flames. Jun was at his side, murmuring words of comfort and holding tightly onto the first mate’s arms to stop him from rubbing at the scars of his chest.

With his heart aching once more, Haeseon looked away, instead turning to welcome the rest of the crew back aboard the ship. Seunggi came first, drawing Haeseon into his arms as soon as he had boarded. “Are you alright, Haesae?” he asked, as if he wasn’t the one who had been consumed with grief.

“I am,” Haeseon said, if only to appease his friend. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” Seunggi sighed. He sounded every bit as exhausted as Haeseon felt, slumping slightly as he leaned against him. “Only sad. The soldiers paid the price. We made sure they did, but I’m still sad.”

Haeseon reached around him and returned his embrace fiercely. “It’s alright to be sad,” he said. “It’s alright to be sad for as long as you want to be. The world will wait for its sun to return.” He peered at Jihan from over the quartermaster’s shoulder, shaking his head minutely when the captain looked their way in question. “It will be alright.”

The crew moved around them in preparation to cast off, granting Seunggi all the time he needed before he finally pulled himself upright. His good eye was red-rimmed behind his golden mask, but he was smiling all the same, however sheepishly. “Thank you, Haesae,” he said and gave Haeseon’s hands a firm squeeze before moving to help the others cast off. He passed Jihan on his way, and the captain reached up to gently tousle his hair, an action that drew a bright laughter from the quartermaster’s lips.

Haeseon smiled, the first genuine one of the night, and went to stow his bow and arrows away. He ignored the roaring flames of the stronghold as best he could, pretending as if he couldn’t see its radiance in the corner of his eye no matter where he turned. It’s over now, he said to himself as he tugged at the stays of the mainsail. It’s all over and done with now.

As soon as they were out to sea, Hisashi’s rage came bursting to the surface.

He tossed his swords to the deck and stormed his way over to where Haeseon stood with Jun and Seunggi, shoving his way past anyone in his path. “You,” he spat and grabbed hold of Haeseon’s shoulder when he was close enough, roughly turning him around to face him. “Do not for an instant think I’ve forgotten what you did, bastard.”

A stunned silence settled over the deck, every single pirate aboard halting whatever they were doing in favor of gaping at the two of them, eyes wide with shock at the swordsman’s actions. The strenuous relationship between the two was hardly something new, but Hisashi had never laid a hand on Haeseon before, not since he had first boarded the August.

At the helm, Jihan stood still as a statue, having stopped dead in the middle of his conversation with Yeonshin.

Seunggi was the first to break out of his shock, anger rising to his face as he came up next to Haeseon and shoved Hisashi away. “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, reaching up to pull off his gilded mask.

“Why don’t you ask your precious friend?” Hisashi spat with so much venom, it had Haeseon recoiling. “Why don’t you ask him what he did?” When all Seunggi did was look at Haeseon, whose lips parted without voice, the swordsman emitted a feral sound, torn between outrage and ire. “We went into that stronghold to get revenge for the people they killed,” he said harshly. “Our people! Those fuckers attacked our defenseless merchants, and when I was about to do what we came here to do, he,” he pinned Haeseon under a murderous glare, “decided I was not allowed to do it and stopped me!”

The vagueness of his words gave Haeseon back his voice, anxious to tell what had actually happened. “That’s not true!” he said shrilly and shook his head. “You were going to kill an innocent woman! She had no part in what happened, she was only—she was a courtesan of one of the soldiers! She wasn’t involved, she wasn’t part of any of it! You had no right to—”

“I had every right!” Hisashi’s voice exploded across the sea, carried far by the silence of the night. “You don’t know what you speak of!” he barked and jabbed a finger hard into Haeseon’s chest. “What of our merchants, huh? Was that right?! They were not pirates, they were not criminals, fuck, the worst they ever did was sell their wares in Shanghai! Did they deserve to be killed for it?”

“No,” Haeseon said, “but—”

“There are no buts here!” the swordsman bit him off. “They killed our people, our unarmed people, so we killed theirs in return! So what if that bitch wasn’t involved? She was there, so she should’ve died! Or do you believe only those who hold weapons can die? That in battle, no one but willing soldiers lose their lives?”

Defiance rose strong in Haeseon’s chest and he held his ground, refusing to back down even in the face of Hisashi’s rage. “Why does that matter?” he asked loudly. “Just because it is the way it usually happens does not mean we have to do it the same way!”

The swordsman emitted a bark of laughter, the sound hollow and utterly without glee. “Here we go again,” he said, his tone scathing. “Show kindness. Don’t kill anyone. Don’t live your lives they way you did before I boarded this ship.”

He made his voice high in an imitation of Haeseon’s, mocking in every meaning of the word. When he was done, however, there was nothing but anger remaining, twisting his features into a snarl. “I’m sick of being looked down on by you,” he spat. “You claim to be a pirate, you call yourself one with pride, yet you try to tell me how I should live my life, and you judge me when I don’t do it the way you want me to! By what right do you do that? By what fucking right do you look down on me for my life?!”

The shock had long since passed, but every pirate aboard the August remained silent as a crypt. Not even Seunggi said a word, and at the helm, Jihan only looked, his eyes narrow, frowning.

“I’m not looking down on you or anyone else,” Haeseon argued hotly. “I’m not, but if you want to set yourself apart from the king’s sailors and the soldiers who killed our merchants, then you can’t do the same things they do! Why are we here, Hisashi? Why did we come here? We came because they killed our merchants! What do you think would happen if we killed theirs in return? Do you think that would solve a single damned thing? Do you think it would make them leave us be?”

The swordsman’s silence should’ve been warning enough to make him stop, but Haeseon pushed, taking a step forward until he was the one crowding Hisashi’s space. “If you killed every innocent who was in any way related to the soldiers of that fortress, then you would be responsible for what happens when they come seeking revenge!” he said and pointed between the swordsman’s eyes. “It would be your fault if they decided to burn Shanghai to the ground, all because you’re too blind and too stupid to understand—”

With all the speed of a serpent, Hisashi smacked Haeseon’s hand away and grabbed hold of the collar of his shirt, and without a word, he rammed his fist into Haeseon’s jaw.

In an instant, the tension that had been wound around the August shattered like glass. Voices broke out left and right, ringing loudly in Haeseon’s ears as he exclaimed and staggered backwards, pain bursting across his face. Someone caught hold of him before he could fall, strong hands holding him upright while their owner shouted words of anger, countered immediately by a voice every bit as fierce. Haeseon’s mind turned, struggling to grasp at what had happened and what was going on, the strike clouding his senses.

“Enough!”

Jihan’s voice was clearer than any of the others’, sharp and loud as gunfire. Haeseon blinked, over and over, until the blur of his eyes cleared and he found himself seated on the deck with no memory of losing his balance. Seunggi was holding him tightly, with Yeonshin kneeling by his side, and Hisashi was caught in Xiao’s grip, still glaring at Haeseon with murderous intent.

“That’s enough,” Jihan barked, storming down the stairs of the quarterdeck until he stood between Haeseon and the swordsman. “You do not fucking lay a hand on your own crewmate, Junji! You can argue however much you want, but you do not pull shit like that!”

“What about him, then?” Hisashi shot back, pointing at Haeseon. “What about your songbird? He struts around this ship like he’s better than all of us, thinking he has any right to tell us what to do because he shares a bed with our captain!”

When Jihan spoke, his voice was calm, but the very air around him quivered with the anger he kept at bay. “You know this has nothing to do with our relationship, Junji,” he said stiffly. “If it did, I would’ve intervened as soon as you started shouting at him. You’ve been on this ship far longer than the songbird has, and you know what our rules are.” He took a step closer, and even though he was shorter than the swordsman, Hisashi looked away, reluctance clinging to his movements as he cast down his gaze. “Tell me you don’t,” Jihan urged. “Tell me you haven’t seen what happens to those who lay a hand on their crewmate.”

Haeseon looked at Lucya, knowing her back was scarred from the punishment she had suffered for burying a bolt through Xiao’s hand when he had attempted to touch her. She was frowning now, a quiet ire clinging to her features where she stood next to Haeseon.

Hisashi said nothing to the captain’s challenge, his jaw clenched and moving with all the words he undoubtedly wanted to throw at every single one of them. Jihan waited, and when he received no reply, he sighed and took a step back. “You know our punishment as well,” he said. “Quartermaster.”

An icy shudder raced down Haeseon’s spine at the implication of the captain’s words, the dread in his chest far overpowering the pain throbbing in his jaw. “Wait,” he said when Seunggi stood, Yeonshin’s hands coming to hold him steady instead. “Wait, no, there is no need for any punishment. Jihan, I don’t want—there’s no need.”

Hisashi spoke before the captain could, hissing, “I’ll take my punishment. I can face the consequences of my actions just fine, no matter what the songbird thinks.”

His hateful tone had Haeseon flinching back against Yeonshin’s arms, and Jihan sent the swordsman a warning look. “These are our rules, songbird,” he said to Haeseon. “Crewmates fight amongst one another every now and then and that’s fine. With so many of us cramped up together aboard a ship, arguments and disagreements are inevitable. But,” he turned back to Hisashi, his tone growing far harsher, “when the whole of the world wants us dead, we do not raise our hands against one another.”

When Seunggi returned with the whip in hand, another wave of protests rose to Haeseon’s lips, but Hisashi forewent them all, anger framing every last one of his movements as he pulled his robes off to bare his back. “Don’t look away,” he told Haeseon and went to his knees. “I won’t, so don’t fucking look away from me.”

Haeseon’s breath lay heavy in his throat, trapped there until Seunggi swung with all his might.

No matter how harshly the coil of the whip hit his skin, Hisashi did not look away. He held Haeseon’s gaze like a vice, and Haeseon was forced to watch, seeing every wince, every flicker of pain that crossed the swordsman’s resolute scowl. The punishment seemed to carry on forever, every lash carving cracks into Haeseon’s resolve until he wanted to break and cry.

In the crew’s silence, the lashes were loud as cannonfire.

Hisashi’s lip curled down with the last lash and a hiss slipped past his gritted teeth before he could stop it, his rigid posture giving an involuntary jerk. Five lashes, the punishment declared, five lashes carved deep into the marred skin of his back, and Haeseon felt it as if he had been the one to take the whip.

With the punishment done, Seunggi tossed the whip aside and pulled the swordsman up to his feet, a bitter frown still etched on his face. Scoffing at the prospect of help, Hisashi wrung himself free and rose on his own. Even now, his movements were harsh and full of all the anger his face so clearly portrayed as he slipped back into his robes, barely managing to suppress the wince that spawned when the rough fabric touched his bloodied skin.

He did not say a word, only glared at Haeseon with so much contempt, Haeseon could feel it on his very skin.

It was Jihan who broke the silence at last. “The lot of you, back to your stations,” he called to his men, who went with muted replies of compliance. To Hisashi, he said, “Go with Yeonshin to the infirmary. Those wounds will fester if not cared for properly.”

Haeseon half expected the swordsman to turn on his captain again, but Hisashi only nodded, sharply, and finally looked away as he stormed past the two of them. He spat a curse under his breath as he went, but did not aim it at Haeseon. Or perhaps he did; he spoke the words in the language of his home of Japan, needing only the tone of his voice to convey their meaning.

Only once he had gone, slamming the doors to the infirmary shut behind him, did Haeseon dare to breathe again, the air in his lungs leaving him in a quivering exhale. His jaw throbbed where Hisashi had struck him, yet as he closed his eyes and buried his face in his hands, the only pain he felt was in his back, where bristling feathers had sprouted to prickle at his skin as a reminder of what he had caused.

-

………. i really have to stop making haeseon get punched wtf.

alsO WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON WHY IS EVERYTHING SPIRALING WHY DID IT BECOME LIKE THIS AHHHHHHHHH—

still me @ me: literally what the double fuck >:((

OKAY SO I PROMISE IT GETS A LITTLE BIT BETTER IN THE NEXT CHAPTER OKAY PLS TRUST ME I KNOW THIS HAS BEEN ANGSTY AND SAD AND TENSE AS SHET BUT IT GETS A LI’L BETTER I SWEAR

seriously, i promise.

also can i just say that haeseon calling the soldier "sir" made me so sad because the guy was a SOLDIER and haeseon still respects SOLDIERS but :(((((

NEXT WEEK!!! SHIT WILL GET BETTER NEXT WEEK!!!!!


	4. chapter 3 - Right and Wrong

As soon as Jihan pulled the doors to the captain’s quarters shut, whatever spirit had still kept Haeseon standing vanished from his chest. He slumped heavily against the cartography table in the middle of the room, letting it bear his weight when his knees became too unsteady. His jaw throbbed dully all across the side of his face, but it was dwarfed by the phantom pain still clinging to his back.

“Songbird,” Jihan said in a voice etched with worry, quick to move to his side. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Haeseon said, only to immediately change his mind. “No. I’m not.”

He did not have to raise his head to know the captain was frowning with concern. “You should’ve let Yeonshin take a look at you,” he said. “If only to give you something for the pain.”

“I couldn’t.” Haeseon shuddered at the mere memory of the way Hisashi had looked at him. “I couldn’t have gone to the infirmary,” he said quietly. “Not when he…” He struggled for a moment to find the right words before pressing his lips together and shaking his head, resigned to leave the sentence unfinished. “It’s not the pain that has me like this.”

Save for an incoherent hum of a sound, Jihan said nothing for a long moment. His hands came to rest against Haeseon’s arms, thumbs stroking over the fabric of the robes he had given him. “Junji will recover,” he said at last, “both in body and mood. He’ll be angry for some time, and then he’ll return to being… well, he’s hardly ever not angry, but that is beside the point.”

His attempt at humour tugged ever so faintly at the corner of Haeseon’s lips, but he could not bring himself to smile. The night’s horrible events were far too fresh in his mind. “I can’t understand why he would go so far,” he said and pushed himself upright, drawing enough strength in his exhaustion to pace restlessly around in the quarters. “He has to know how reckless he is, and what the consequences of such recklessness can be.”

He ran a hand through his hair, tugging slightly at the strands in an attempt to resist the creeping urge to rub at the skin of his arms. Jihan’s eyes were on him, alert as ever, and he knew the captain did not like to see him scratch at himself. “It’s not as if I stopped him from slaying a soldier in battle,” Haeseon went on, growing more distressed the more he thought of what had happened. “Could he truly be so—so twisted that me stopping him from killing an innocent woman drove him to outrage?”

A sigh slipped past his lips, a tad sharper than should be. “You would've thought I had taken his blade away from him and forced him to apologise to the ones he had slain,” he said in a mutter, the swordsman’s words ringing clear in his ears. “I simply didn't want him to kill someone who wasn't involved. Someone who likely had no choice but to be there. I don’t understand why he would go so far as to strike me if he knew what the punishment would be.”

Even after he ceased to voice his thoughts, Haeseon resumed his pacing, walking back and forth between their bed and the organ piano, as if it would make him calm. He couldn’t find it in him to settle down, his nerves wound too tight in the wake of what had happened. There was no sense to it, to reason he could fathom, and it drove him mad.

The silence lasted only for a moment before Jihan raised his voice. “But,” he said, “you know he wasn’t entirely wrong.”

Haeseon halted in the middle of a step, the muscles in his neck tensing upon the captain’s words. He could feel Jihan’s eyes against the back of his head, prickling at him and feeding the discomfort pressing on his chest. “What do you mean?” he asked stiffly. He did not turn around; he did not want to see Jihan’s face just then.

The captain heaved a soft sigh. “I know that voice, songbird,” he said, calm as ever, “and I’m not attempting to scold or lecture you, or tell you how to feel about what happened. I’m not excusing Junji’s behaviour either. I only want you to understand.”

“So explain,” Haeseon said and turned on the heel, crossing his arms tightly over his chest. The pressure in his chest was crawling to his throat to make him snap out the words he spoke, ire seeping into his distress at the captain’s solemn expression.

Jihan pushed away from the cartography desk and walked over to Haeseon to gently coax him into letting him take hold his hands. “Do you remember the first time I told you I loved you?” he asked.

Haeseon nodded, albeit with some reluctance. “Yes,” he said, frowning. “Of course I do.”

“Because you don’t change, right?” the captain said. “Because no matter how much you see of this side of the world, you do not change in the same way we have. You don’t accept it like we have.” He inclined his head, seeking Haeseon’s gaze. “I love your strength, songbird. I love the devotion you show yourself. I love that you don’t give up on what you believe simply because it would be easier to do so, and I know the others admire that in you as well.”

It was unfair, truly, how readily Haeseon was to let go of his anger and distress in the face of Jihan’s gentle words. His words, along with the reverent gaze with which he looked at Haeseon made it a feat near impossible to cling to his ire, but he persisted all the same, lips curling into a rueful smile. “I sense a but coming,” he said in an all but petulant manner.

Jihan smiled as well, although his was far kinder. “But,” he said, “just as we do not ask of you to change to suit the lives we lead, you cannot ask of us to change to suit yours. It wouldn’t be fair, would it?”

No, Haeseon thought, but pressed his lips together around the word before he could speak it. He wasn’t quite ready to accept it yet.

“Junji is an arse and a bastard, just like the rest of us,” Jihan said, his gaze falling to where he was holding Haeseon’s hands in his own. “His life has made him angry and reckless. He suits a pirate’s life well, better than most of us aboard this vessel, and if you ask of him to accept you as you are, you must be willing to accept him in return.”

In the face of Haeseon’s silence, the captain gently guided him towards the organ piano and took his seat on the stool without letting go of his hands, tugging Haeseon to stand between his legs. “All of us, songbird,” Jihan said, peering up at him. “We are pirates. We are not merchants or sailors, but pirates. You know this.”

“I do,” Haeseon said, very quietly. “I know it, Jihan, but…” He hesitated, struggling to find the right words. “I only thought…”

The captain smiled when he failed to say what was truly on his mind and gave his hands a reassuring squeeze. “I know,” he said, and Haeseon knew he meant it. “And perhaps in an ideal world, we could be like you. We could value life as much as it should be valued. But this world is not fair, and sometimes, we can’t fight it with fairness. Sometimes, we must fight it like Hisashi Junji does if we wish to make things right for ourselves. ‘Tis not something you have to agree with or even understand, but one day, you will have to accept it.”

Haeseon only looked at him, as if he would find the answer to all the questions colliding in his head written on the captain’s face. Jihan was so calm and so very gentle, and his words were true, no matter how little Haeseon wanted to admit it. He knew Hisashi had been wrong, both in his actions and in his outrage, but the captain was right as well, and the care with which he had spoken made it impossible to argue or retort with the ire that had long since vanished.

Sighing, Haeseon raised one of his hands from Jihan’s grip to stroke at the silvery hairs amidst the black locks at his temple. He wasn’t certain why he did it, but the captain closed his eyes and leaned into his touch, sighing in content against the palm of his hand. “I wish you hadn’t had him whipped,” Haeseon murmured, a frown still marring his brow.

“I know that, too,” Jihan said. “But those are one of the few rules we have to abide by. It is impossible to go for long without fighting amongst one another, but one may never raise their hand on a crewmate.” Sighing, he leaned forward until his brow rested against Haeseon’s chest. “Does it hurt?”

As if on cue, the dull throbbing in his jaw flared up again, pale as it was in the face of the remnants of Hisashi’s punishment, still prickling at his back. “A little,” Haeseon said and buried his hand into the captain’s hair. “I’m certain Hisashi is hurt worse.”

“Don’t worry about him, songbird,” Jihan said. His breath was warm against Haeseon’s chest, drawing a shudder out of him. “As I said, he will be angry about this for a few days, and then he’ll move onto being angry about something else.”

Haeseon nodded, even though he knew he would worry all the same. “What will we do now?” he asked, eager to speak of something else.

“Now, we return to Shanghai,” the captain said. “Where we go from there, I’m not yet certain.” He sighed again, for the umpteenth time that night. “The east is restless, more so than it has been in a long time. I wish I knew how to make it settle.”

Haeseon wished to know as well, if only for the sake of sparing his beloved the weight laying heavy on his shoulders. He wished he could ease it, if only by a fraction, but for now, all he could do was lean down to press his lips against Jihan’s head, humming softly against his hair while the August carried them back to the only haven they knew.

-

Two weeks after the attack on Shanghai’s merchants and Jihan’s retaliation, the city had returned to its prior glory, as if the harrowing events had never happened at all. The Rogue Market was bustling with life once more, having drawn in traders from all over the east to barter for a chance to make their mark as a merchant of the pirate haven. They sold the same things as those who had come before, weapons and maps and anything one could possible need out on the sea, and the pirates who visited emptied their storages just as quickly.

Of course, the people of Shanghai still remembered. They would remember it for a long time, if the stories they told in the taverns was anything to go by. “The Eastern Fox set the soldiers aflame and chased them burning to death’s door,” they said with amusement and pride right before clacking their tankards together and drinking deep.

While Haeseon did not like the tales they told, it made him content to see the inhabitants and visitors for once in agreement of their favourable view of the captain.

Two weeks had passed, but Jihan was content to remain ashore. He said nothing of why he had chosen to, but Haeseon and the rest of the crew knew his worry. They knew he wished to stay in the city and ensure neither soldiers nor sailors would strike at its heart again while he was out at sea, beyond the capabilities of lending a helping hand.

No one had asked him to and no one expected it of him, but Jihan bore the weight of the east on his back, and so he had chosen to stay and ensure the Pirate Port would remain safe.

It’s not so bad, Haeseon thought as he stepped off the August where it was docked by the southern pier. Yeonshin had sent him on his way only moments prior, claiming he could take care of sorting the herbs they had bought in the city by himself. At least it gives us time to rest and know our own kind of peace.

Two weeks ashore after over a month at sea was hardly enough to make him restless, a sentiment the rest of the crew seemed to agree on. In fact, most of them seemed more than happy with being in vicinity of so many brothels. Haeseon pursed his lips at the thought, hardly charmed by the prospect of purchasing pleasure. One might’ve called him prude—Seunggi certainly did, often and again—but he believed such things should happen only between two who loved one another. 

Then again, perhaps he was simply biased against prostitution as a whole. After all, it was not long since he had been looked at with the vulgar hunger of those who dwelled within the Pirate Port.

Do not think of it, he said to himself. It would hardly serve to work himself into a state of discomfort where he was now, walking along the crowded streets of Shanghai and the very people who had once dragged him into an alley and shoved him against a wall. They can’t touch you now. They would not dare.

Strange as it was to him, it was true. Haeseon, in the eyes of the Pirate Port, had changed since the first time he had set foot there. To its people, he had a name now, and a price on his head to go with it. They no longer looked at him and saw only what they had once thought he was, a whore. Instead, they saw a pirate like any other, the Ocean’s Harpy who had killed a commander of the king’s sailors with nothing but his Blessing’s claws.

Perhaps it was all due to Son Jukan and his manic desire to spread his name as that of a demon’s across the world along with the rest of those who crewed the August, but the pirates who came to Shanghai knew Haeseon’s name and title, and they knew the man he sailed with.

Some still looked at Haeseon in a way that made his skin crawl, but none would risk touching him now, not when they knew it would beckon the wrath of Choi Jihan. Or at least he hoped that was what they feared; Haeseon was far from fond of the thought that it was him they were afraid of, him and his Blessing. He was not a murderer, and being thought of as such by the pirates around him made his stomach twist and turn.

Sighing, Haeseon steered his steps for the tavern where he knew Jihan had gone with most of the crew. It lay at the very top of the rope bridges; as he made his way up winding, uneven stairs and sloping decks, he sorely wished his Blessing’s feathers would grow faster to allow him to fly as he should be able to again.

There was music coming from within the tavern, the upbeat tune muted through the wooden doors. Even so, Haeseon knew it for what it was, a song coaxed from the keys of a piano, and as he made his way inside, he couldn’t help his surprise at the prospect of who the musician might be.

True enough, once he had made his way to the bar through the buzzing crowd, he found Jihan seated by the old, run-down piano tucked away in the tavern’s corner. What surprised him further still was the grin tugging at the captain’s lips, but upon looking around more closely, he realised with a chuckle of his own what it was that had Jihan so amused.

Xiao, seemingly drunk off his arse, was stumbling around the floor with Seunggi in his arms, swinging the quartermaster around in some kind of dance, all the while belting out whatever incoherent words he must’ve believed suited the song Jihan played. He made a rather atrocious sight, more like that of his Blessing’s bear than human, but Seunggi was overjoyed, laughing bright and loud behind his mask as the carpenter swung him this way and that.

It was easy to see what had Jihan smiling then. Hearing the quartermaster laugh so cheerfully after so long made Haeseon’s heart swell in his chest, lips curling up into a smile of his own. It was as if he was seeing his friend for the first time after a long time apart, and upon that thought, he had to look away lest he burst into tears amidst a tavern full of strangers.

He caught sight of Jun sitting on a high chair by one of the tables and made his way over to join him and steal one of the taters he had ordered from the barkeep. The cook pinned him under a warning look, but Haeseon only smiled around the greasy mouthful and turned in his seat to look around and see who else had joined their captain for an evening of leisure and fun.

Daewon stood by the bar, grinning at Xiao and Seunggi while he waited for the keep to pour his drinks. Next to him sat Lucya, tossing back what looked to be her sixth mug of undoubtedly strong spirits, and by her side sat Hisashi.

Haeseon caught the swordsman’s eyes and grew tense, his joyful mood dampening when Hisashi merely scowled and looked away, lips moving around inaudible words, drowned by the tavern’s noise.

“Don’t mind him, canary,” Jun said, having followed his gaze. “He’s only sulking, childish as he is. He will come around soon.”

Although far from convinced, Haeseon nodded and turned away, seeking distraction from his tension in the music and sorry excuse of a dance Xiao was displaying.

It wasn’t long before the song reached its end and Jihan stood up, his smile growing wider still when both Xiao and Seunggi voiced their protests, very loudly, demanding him to play another song. The captain barely managed to escape before they caught him and had him do their bidding, slipping past their clumsy arms in favour of making his way over to where Haeseon was sitting.

Without a care as to who was watching, Jihan pulled Haeseon to the edge of his seat and stooped to steal the air right out of his lungs with a long, sweet kiss. His tongue tasted like spirits and Haeseon couldn’t stop himself from smiling, so widely they had to break apart. “Drunkard,” he teased, only now noticing the faint hue of red clinging to the captain’s cheeks. “Did you have fun up there?”

“Only a little,” Jihan said and drew Haeseon close enough to curl his arms around the small of his back. “Would’ve been more fun if you had been there as well, songbird.”

Haeseon made a show of glancing over at the battered piano, ignoring the strange gazes thrown their way. “There was hardly any room for me on that little stool,” he said when he turned back.

“My lap was vacant,” Jihan said, as if it was the most obvious answer in the world.

A giggle spilled from Haeseon’s lips before he could stop it, and he smacked lightly at the captain’s arm. “You really are drunk.”

“Only a little,” Jihan said again. He leaned in to press his lips against Haeseon’s temple, humming in content. Next to them, Jun rolled his eyes and shook his head, but Haeseon couldn’t quite bring himself to care, not when the captain was being so sweet.

At least not until a cloaked stranger slid into the seat opposite of them and heaved a loud, overly dramatic sigh, tutting in a disapproving manner. “You two are being terribly disgusting,” he said, judgement clinging to every word he spoke. “Sickening, really. I would’ve thought behaviour such as this was saved for the privacy of your chambers.”

His harsh words would’ve had Haeseon jerking away if not for the note of familiarity to the way he spoke. He could not see the stranger’s face, but he was certain he had heard his voice before, in a place he couldn’t remember. The man was dressed in leather and furs and a heavy cloak, far too warm even so late in autumn.

Whoever he might’ve been, Jihan did not share Haeseon hesitation. “Fuck off,” he spat without stepping away from where he held Haeseon in his arms or even looking away.

“I was only giving you my honest opinion,” the stranger said with a shrug and reached for Jun’s taters, clicking his tongue when the cook yanked them out from under his hand. “There is no need for such anger.”

Jihan sighed, exasperation seeping into his expression as he finally turned to dignify the stranger with his full attention. “You can drag your arse somewhere else if you don’t like what you’re looking at,” he said curtly. “Or we can arrange to have someone else drag it for you. Whichever fucking way you want.”

The stranger was wholly unperturbed by Jihan’s warning. “And here I was doing you a favour by letting you know how obnoxious you were being in front of such a sizable audience of questionable nature,” he said and reached up to push the hood of his cloak out of his face. “I suppose no good deed truly does go unpunished.”

Without the cloak, Haeseon recognised the man with ease, his eyes growing wide at the sight of the familiar face, framed by a mess of black hair and gold glittering in his ears. “It’s you!” he exclaimed in surprise and nudged Jihan back so he could rise to his feet. “You’re Qasim, Talya’s husband.”

The northerner grinned, every bit as smug as he had when they’d last seen one another. “Right you are, Yun Haeseon,” Qasim said and leaned back in his seat, content now that he had gotten his desired reaction from the lot of them. “I must say, I expected a warmer welcome from you lot, but I suppose it was ambitious of me to hope the Eastern Cardinal had grown a tad less stiff.”

“Arse,” Jihan scoffed. He moved to take the seat Haeseon had risen from, still without letting him go. In his shock, Haeseon barely noticed the shift, still gaping at the northerner, loathe to believe he was actually here. “Is your captain with you? Is Sabelsdottír here?”

“No,” Qasim said. “She sent me here to find you and deliver an urgent message. Quite a waste of time, I’d say. Letters are far less trouble to send across the world…”

“What message?” Jihan asked, impatience clear as day in his voice and in the way his hands tensed and eased against Haeseon’s waist. “Why would she send you, her first mate, all the way here without coming herself?”

By now, the others of the crew had noticed Qasim’s presence, their merriment having died down in favour of staring at the northerner either in surprise or suspicion. He paid them no heed whatsoever, instead raising a finger as if to silence Jihan and his questions, tutting once more. “I’m afraid the message is not for you, Choi Jihan,” he said in an all but spiteful manner. “She sent me to find her friend in the east, and I’m fairly certain the friend she spoke of is your darling songbird.”

Haeseon’s eyes grew wider still, his shock leaving him winded while the northerner continued to speak. “Ah, pardon me, I meant Yun Haeseon. Talya did tell me only the Black Fox is to call him by that name, and I wouldn’t dream of upsetting the great Eastern Cardinal.”

“What the fuck are you—”

“What message?” Haeseon asked, having finally regained enough of his composure to speak, if even a tad too loudly. He placed a hand atop Jihan’s where it sat on his waist to soothe him without turning away from Qasim, worry rising fast in his chest now that his surprise had begun to pass. “Is Talya alright? Is she hurt?”

“Perceptive, aren’t you?” the northerner said in a voice far too amused for what it was he was saying. “Your friend in the north needs your help. She sent me to ask you, although it is more of a formality.” He turned his smirk on Jihan. “You owe her your favour after what she did for you in the battle against the Rabid Conflagration.”

“Of course we will help,” Haeseon said before the captain could even begin to form a retort. “Did something happen to Talya?”

“Yes,” Qasim said easily, “and what a spectacular something it is, Yun Haeseon. My captain has flirted with death one too many times, and now the goddess of the underworld herself comes bearing down on her with all her might.”

Confusion rose fast to join Haeseon’s worry and shock, rendering him dumbstruck and gaping. “What?” was all he managed, loathe to believe a single word the northerner had spoken.

Qasim grinned as if he knew just what was going through his mind. “Hel has come for Talya Sabelsdottír,” he said, “and she needs your help to send the bitch back whence she came.”

-

hhhhhhhhhhOO BOI THE MAIN PLOT BE STARTIN' UP REAL FAST NOW YUP WE GOIN' NORTHBOUND NOW WOO

okay but like i was really happy to see the division between who thought hisashi was right and who though haeseon was right in the last chapter, it was just what i had hoped, to give y'all some food for thought on the whole thing *u*

huhuhu, now i'm curious to see what y'all think of what jihan told haeseon, and if y'all agree that jihan is tHE BEST MAN IN THE WORLD UGH HE'S SO GOOD TO HAESEON AND HE LOVES HAESEON SO MUCH AND UGH I LOVE MY SONS SO MUCH AHHHHH—

jihan for president 2k18


	5. chapter 4 - All

For a long moment, no one said a word.

The silence reached throughout the tavern, having spread to the other customers upon the northern first mate’s abrupt revelation. They all looked either at Jihan, silent and frowning in his contemplation, or Qasim, who had so brazenly spoken of gods and favours owed to the Eastern Cardinal. Even Xiao had gone quiet, although he was struggling to focus his gaze in his state of drunkenness.

Haeseon looked between the two, teeth worrying his lip. He knew Jihan well enough to recognise his ire, and he placed a hand over the captain’s where it still held him by his waist. The northerner, on the other hand, was all but basking in the bewildered shock he had caused, his smirk running from ear to ear.

They all waited for Jihan to speak, and when he finally did, no trace of drunkenness lingered in his sharp tone of voice. “Every bastard not part of my crew,” he said loudly, “get out.”

It was startling, truly, the speed with which the pirates in the tavern complied. All at once, they stood and made for the doors, tossing coins onto the tables to pay for their drinks or food. Some threw snide glances Jihan’s way, but none lingered, and soon enough, the inn was empty save for those who crewed the August, and Qasim.

“Now,” he said as soon as the lot of them had gone, leaving only a disgruntled barkeep behind to clean up his once-full tavern, “I know you didn’t cross halfway around the world to bullshit me, Bahir Qasim, but that doesn’t make it any easier to understand what the fuck you’re trying to tell me. So tell me again why you’re here, in explicit fucking detail.”

The northerner heaved an over-dramatic sigh, as if the task was more strenuous than he could bear. “How difficult can it be to understand?” he asked with a huff. “My captain needs you to sail north to help deal with an annoyance.”

“An annoyance,” Jun echoed in a voice heavy with irony. “Yes, because a god descending to the mortal world to hunt humans could only be described as an annoyance.”

“I’d say Hel ascended to the mortal world, wouldn’t you?” Qasim mused, unperturbed. “She is no god of mine, but the realm of the dead lies far below our feet, I’d say, so—”

“What does it bloody matter where she came from?” Jihan asked loudly. His hands were taut with exasperation already, so Haeseon stroked the captain’s knuckles with his thumb, humming in content when his tension eased somewhat. “What I don’t understand is why, no, how a god could walk amongst humans. As for you, Sabelsdottír’s gods are not my own and I have no reason to believe they exist at all, yet you expect me to blindly agree and sail north with you.”

Qasim pursed his lips at that, not in ire, but in thought. “I suppose that is true enough,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t believe in the northern gods either, but now one has come to my captain’s seas, seeking vengeance for the insults she has caused.”

He reached inside his robes, grinning at the ripple of tension that went through the crew upon the gesture, and pulled out an empty piece of paper and three small stones. “Three warnings we were given,” he said and laid the paper on the table. “First, our ship burned on the sea with no one to have lit the fire anywhere in sight.” He placed the first stone at the bottom of the parchment. “Then, three of our men were killed in the night, each of their bodies left in the snow with no footprints or blood in their wake.”

The smile on Qasim’s lips grew wry once he’d placed the second stone and picked up the last. “Finally,” he said and set the final pebble at the very edge of the paper, where the coast would be, “every elder in the town where Talya Sabelsdottír was born had died upon our arrival, their throats cut open and their nails carved from their fingers.”

A rush of nausea settled in Haeseon’s gut, mingling with the horror the northerner spoke of. He moved backwards until he stood pressed against Jihan’s side, the captain’s hands holding him steady as his legs began to weaken. For a moment, Haeseon wondered if Talya’s mother had been amongst those who had been slain so cruelly, but recalled, to whatever small relief, her saying her mother had passed when she was young.

It was hardly a thing of comfort.

“A cloaked stranger told Talya of three warnings she would receive,” Qasim said and leaned back, “and three have been delivered. Now, if the stranger’s words are to be believed, the next one to die will be my captain. She is to be dragged down to Hel’s realm of the dead, where she will suffer at the hand of the god she has insulted.”

Somewhere behind them, Xiao turned over and retched, either from the spirits or the harrowing tale, or from both. No one else said a word. Seunggi clung to Yeonshin while staring at the northerner with his good eye wide open, lips parted in disquiet awe. He was not the only one; the surgeon mirrored his expression, as did Jun, and while Daewon remained calm as ever, his disgust was evident in the downturn of his lips. At the bar, Lucya murmured a curse into her mug before turning it up and swallowing its content without pause.

“Fuck,” Jihan said under his breath, grimacing. “And you’re certain these are the actions of,” he paused for a moment, “of a northern god.”

“I am not,” Qasim said flatly. “I have never seen Hel myself, after all. All I can do is rely on the rumours that have been spread across the north ever since the first warning came. They speak of an unknown woman surrounded by shadows, who kills with nothing more than a touch. Wherever she goes, only corpses are left in her wake, and,” his smile was terribly misplaced for the terrible words he spoke, “she only speaks the name Talya Sabelsdottír, promising death to the woman who bears it.”

Dimly, Haeseon realised the barkeep had ceased his cleaning in favour of staring at the northerner with eyes wide and bugging. He could hardly blame the man; had Qasim been anyone except who he was, no one would ever even consider to believe a single word he spoke. It was mad talk, truly, but he was first mate to the Long-toothed Tiger of the North, and he would not have come all this way only to tell lies.

“Where is Talya now?” Haeseon asked, overcome by a sense of urgency that far overpowered his shock.

“Hiding,” Qasim said. “Our ship was lost to the flames and no one has dared to agree to build us a new one, fearing the wrath of Hel come for them as well, should they help the one she has sworn to kill.” He scoffed, as if he found it a ridiculous notion, to fear such a thing. “Even with a knife to their throats, every shipwright along the coast of Iceland has refused.” He pitched his voice high to mimic that of the frightened carpenters. “If I help you, I will die all the same. You might as well kill me now and spare me a life of fear, short as it will be.”

Jihan was silent in his brooding, even though his thoughts ran so hard and loud Haeseon could all but hear them. For all the revulsion brought on by the northerner’s words, however, his skeptice was apparent as well, and perhaps it was why Daewon chose to speak first. “Whether or not the woman behind these acts is truly the goddess of death,” he said, “the Northern Cardinal still asks for our help.”

Qasim parted his lips, likely to remind them all that they owed Talya their favour, but Haeseon beat him to it, turning in Jihan’s hands to look at him. “We have to help her, Jihan,” he said, still holding the captain’s hands in his own. “She is stranded, cut off from the sea that is her home when her life is at risk. We can’t leave her to fend for herself, or—”

“What of the east?” Hisashi asked loudly, interrupting Haeseon halfway through his words. With the way the swordsman glared at him while speaking, it was as if he was only attempting to undermine what it was Haeseon wanted. “The king’s sailors have been rampant and bloody loud as of late. Would it truly be wise to leave our seas as they are now? Who knows what those crazy bastards would do in our absence.”

Had his words not been true, Haeseon might’ve bristled at his interference, born only out of hatred towards him. He frowned, disgruntled that Hisashi did not consider Talya’s situation to be of importance, but Yeonshin spoke before he could form a retort. “The king’s sailors, as they are now, are guided by an obsessed, rabid hound,” he said dryly. “Whatever action Son Jukan has taken has all been for the sake of getting his hands on Jihan, but his jurisdiction only reaches so far. Should we leave the east, he might settle down and bide his time instead, knowing nothing he does would lure us out to meet him as we won’t be sailing the same seas as he.”

Daewon and Jun both nodded at that, which in turn prompted Hisashi to scoff and lean back in his seat, arms crossed tightly over his chest. He said nothing, but his ire at being rebutted was clear as day.

“Excellent,” Qasim said in feigned glee and clapped his hands together. “Then let us set sail as soon as we can, shall we? There is hardly time to spare when you go to fight the lady of death, so—”

“What about Kyujang?” All eyes turned to Seunggi, who was frowning behind his masks. “We can’t just leave without him and sail to the north,” he said, looking at the others before turning to Qasim. “Kyujang is our sailing master, who—”

“I know all about your Hand of Midas,” the northerner interrupted, the first sign of impatience apparent in the twitch of his lip. “He resides in the temple of the Blessed Oracles, no? To learn control of his Blessing.”

“Don’t call him that,” Seunggi said, his voice rising in indignation.

Qasim merely shrugged. “You’ve been sailing without him for nearly half a year,” he said. “What difference would it make if you went north without him now? It’s not as if he would even know.”

The quartermaster’s displeasure was quick to morph into anger, an anger shared by his brother, who finally broke out of his silence. “You keep your mouth shut about matters that don’t concern you,” Jihan said harshly and rose from his seat. “Kyujang is one of our own, and we will not sail to the other side of the world and leave him behind without giving him the chance to come with us.”

“And how will you give him that chance?” Qasim shot back, all prior pretense of glee as good as gone. He looked vexed now, and Haeseon knew it was a product of his worry for Talya, however much he wished to hide it. “Kolkata is weeks away by sea. If we sailed there and came back, and then sailed up north, my captain could be dead by the time we arrived.”

“She could be dead right now for all you know,” Seunggi spat with all the venom of a serpent.

“We won’t sail to Kolkata before we know what Kyujang wants,” Jihan said before Qasim could do more than aim a dark glare at the quartermaster. “We will send him a letter and wait for his reply, and only after receiving it will we decide what to do. Should he wish to join us, we will sail to Kolkata to fetch him. Should he not, we will sail north immediately.”

The northerner ground his teeth in ire, his jaw moving with all the uncouth words he no doubt wanted to throw at Jihan. His frustration was palpable in the very air around him, but he swallowed it quickly enough and masked it with a wrong smile. “Fine,” he said in a tone that indicated everything but. “Fine. Send your letter. I’ll wait. The north will wait. I’m sure even Hel will be happy to wait, so please, take all the time you need, Cardinal.”

“I will,” Jihan said flatly, refusing to rise to the bait. Instead, he turned to Seunggi, the stern look on his face softening considerably. “Return to the August and write a letter to Kyujang. Tell him what we’ve been told, and ask him what he wishes to do. There is a rookery on the northern outskirts of Shanghai, one that breeds black pigeons to carry messages all across the east. Tell them who sent you, and they will give you their fastest bird.”

Seunggi nodded and threw a final glare Qasim’s way before making for the tavern door. “I’ll come with you,” Haeseon said and moved to follow his friend. “Try not to kill one another while we’re away.”

“I’ll try,” Jihan said while Qasim merely rolled his eyes. Before Haeseon could follow after Seunggi, however, the captain pulled him close and pressed a kiss against his cheek to mask his whispered words. “Be gentle with him, songbird,” he murmured against his temple. “My brother is fragile without his anchor.”

“I know,” Haeseon said quietly, his heart twisting in his chest. “I’ll be there for him.”

Jihan nodded and kissed him again before letting him go. Tipping his head before Qasim, Haeseon made for the door, quick on his feet as he took the shortest path to the piers where the August was tied. Seunggi was nowhere to be seen, and Haeseon had no doubt the quartermaster had taken off as fast as his legs could carry him, both exuberant and aghast at the thought of writing to his beloved after so many months.

True enough, when Haeseon reached the docks, he found Seunggi in the captain’s quarters, hunched over the cartography table in the middle with a blank piece of paper in front of him, quill in hand yet unmoving. He was staring unblinking at the parchment, as if expecting it to tell him what to say, what to write.

“Seunggi,” Haeseon said quietly and walked over to his friend, who did not look up. He was still wearing his masks, his labored breath muffled against the leather one that covered his mouth and nose. The quill trembled in his grip, its tip hovering over the paper without ever making contact. Aching, Haeseon slid his arms around the quartermaster’s waist and lay his chin on his shoulder, and simply held him until he was ready.

It took Seunggi several long minutes to break out of his state of paralysis. He did so with a deep, bone-rattling sigh and set down the quill in favour of clenching his hand against the table. “How do I write this letter, Haesae?” he asked, his voice quivering every bit as much as the pen had in his hand. “How do I write it without begging him to come home?”

He shook his head and sniffled, and Haeseon held him closer. “His training is important,” Seunggi said, “so, so important, both to him and to myself, and I don’t want to force him away from it. I don’t want to be the reason he leaves his training incomplete and returns to us unhappy, but fuck, Haesae, I want to see him more than anything. More than anything.” His voice cracked with the first of his tears, the rest following freely. “Being apart like this,” he sobbed, “it hurts.”

“I know, Gi,” Haeseon said, struggling to keep his own voice steady. He gently rocked them back and forth, never easing his grip on his beloved friend. “I know it hurts, and I know Kyujang is hurting, too. How could he not, when the two of you share one soul?” He crooned softly when Seunggi’s cries grew louder. “You can tell him that,” he said. “You can tell Kyujang how much you miss him. How much all of us miss him. It’s alright to tell him that.”

The quartermaster said nothing, but Haeseon felt his doubt in the way his muscles in his shoulders tensed, as if he wanted to shake his head. “It is,” Haeseon insisted. “Wrong would be if you lied to persuade him to come, but it is not wrong of you to miss him and to want to see him, nor is it wrong of you to let him know you feel that way.”

“Are you sure?” Seunggi asked thickly, and he sounded so fragile it dug cracks into Haeseon’s chest. “Truly?”

“I am,” he said and pressed more firmly against the quartermaster’s back. “Kyujang will make his choice with the knowledge you give him, and whatever choice he makes, it will be his own. Even if you tell him how much you wish to see him, the choice is his to make and no one will blame you for it.” Clumsy as he was with nearly no clear vision, he reached up and wiped the tears from Seunggi’s cheek. “Tell him you miss him,” he said. “Tell him you miss him, and then tell him the rest.”

The quartermaster nodded and, after a moment longer to silence his tears, reached for the quill.

He wrote in silence, and Haeseon held him all the while. He did not look at Seunggi’s words. They were not his to read, nor anyone else’s but Kyujang’s, so he buried his face against the quartermaster’s shoulder and waited, humming softly whenever Seunggi’s breath became uneven. It took him a long time, perhaps even hours, and when he was done, he folded the paper and held it against his chest.

“Thank you, Haesae,” he whispered.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Haeseon said, every bit as quiet. “I would do anything to keep our sun from being sad.”

They walked to the rookery hand in hand, the letter held firmly against Seunggi’s chest all the way. Even when they arrived, he was loathe to let it go, clutching it whilst Haeseon greeted the owner, a short woman with hair all the way down to her thighs. Upon hearing the name of their captain, she all but skipped to the rows of cages behind her little shop, crossing over to the farthest one and talking all the while about how she had just the bird they needed.

From the largest cage, she pulled a pigeon black as night, and told them they were lucky to not have come a day earlier; the bird had recently flown to northern Russia and back, and had been resting until the morning of that same day. Soot, the pigeon’s name was, for the black of his feathers, and for the ease with which the wind carried him across the lands.

With no small amount of reluctance, Seunggi handed her the letter and watched her roll it up until it could fit in the little holster tied to the bird’s leg. Once it was secure, she turned her back to them and murmured something incomprehensible in a voice that was not human, and with a start, Haeseon realised she, too, held a Blessing just like his own, one born out of a bird’s heart.

When she was done, she tossed the pigeon into the air. It flailed for only a moment to find its wings before taking off westwards, swift as the wind and every bit as sure. Smiling, the woman told them to come back in a week’s time at most should the bird bring back a letter from Kolkata. She peered at Seunggi with such understanding, Haeseon wondered if she knew what it was he was suffering through.

“You’ve done all you can, Gi,” he told his friend when they stepped out of the rookery. He squeezed Seunggi’s hand in his own. “Now, we wait for Kyujang to make his choice.”

-

Just as the woman had promised, seven days it took the black bird to return from Kolkata. Seven long days, during which Seunggi would visit the rookery countless times each day in hopes of a reply while Qasim’s impatience grew stronger still for every passing day. Haeseon stayed with the quartermaster as often as he could, going with him to the rookery and apologising when the woman shooed them back outside in a blend of exasperation and amusement.

On the seventh morning, when Haeseon was sitting down with Jihan and the others to eat breakfast in one of the many inns of the harbour, Seunggi came bursting through the doors like a tidal wave, startling several of the patrons. One of them dropped their mug and spilled ale all over the floor, but the quartermaster ignored him and his angry outcry and instead darted over to where the crew was sitting.

“It came,” he said thinly, his chest heaving with exertion from his run. He held up a small scroll, one just like what the woman of the rookery had fashioned out of the letter they had sent away. “Kyujang’s answer. It came.”

Jihan rose from his seat and pushed Seunggi down into it before he would fall over in exhaustion. “Take your time,” the captain told his brother, even though the whole rest of the crew were holding their breath in waiting. “Take your time until you’re ready.”

At the opposite end of the table, Qasim parted his lips, likely to say something less than agreeable. Haeseon turned his way sharply and raised a finger to his own lips in a request for silence, which, to his surprise, the northerner respected, albeit with a roll of his eyes.

When Seunggi eventually mustered the courage to open the scroll, he did so with trembling hands. He held the letter as if it might turn into ash in his hands, as if he feared if he was too eager, his beloved’s words would disappear before he could ever read them. He unrolled it with care, and when there was only one fold left to turn, he drew a deep breath and held it.

Out of the letter fell a golden flower, clinking softly where it hit Jihan’s abandoned plate. It was small, smaller than a strawberry’s flower, with a winding stem and no leaves. Two petals had been plucked from it, from opposite sides of the flower’s heart, and before Seunggi even began to read, Haeseon knew what the letter would say.

My love, my Seunggi,

not an hour goes by when I don’t wish I could hold you in my arms again. Not a minute passes without me needing to hear your voice, your laughter again. I miss you so much, my love, sometimes so much I want to cry. Your smile is what I see when I close my eyes, and it’s all that helps me find peace at nights.

I can’t put to words how much I long to see my sun once again, but I can’t leave this temple now. I promised myself I would return to the ship only once I had learned to master my Blessing. I’ve made progress for sure, but not so much that I would feel it right to leave now.

I’m sorry, Seunggi, my love. I’m sorry I can’t come see you now. I wish more than anything that I could, but I’ve promised. Next time I see you, I will hold you with my bare hands. With no gloves or layers in between, and no fear, I will hold you and feel your warmth as I’ve always wanted to. I’ve promised, to myself and to you.

Take this flower and wait for me a little while longer. Take it with you when you sail north to see their gods and beasts, and know I'm with you in spirit, unwithering. Give my thanks to Jihan for waiting to hear my reply. Tell Haeseon to never let you be by yourself when you grow sad. Tell the others as well. Tell them how much I miss them.

I love you, now and always.

Your Kyujang

By the time Seunggi stopped reading, he was clutching the letter tightly in his hands, tears brimming in his eye. Quivering, he took the small flower and held it with all the care in the world, and sank his teeth into his lips to not give way for the emotions brimming within him. All he did was jerk his head in a nod. It was all he had to do.

Jihan stooped to press his lips against the top of the quartermaster’s head, murmuring words of comfort too quiet for the others to hear. “Begin preparations immediately,” he said when he stood upright, firm in the face of his brother’s sorrow. “Come sunrise, we sail north.”

-

kyujang :(((

okay so this is a sad thing, but i felt like it was necessary :((

the decision to have him “sit out” for the majority of the story was really hard to make, but i eventually decided it wouldn’t make much sense if kyujang came back to the crew already. timeline-wise, he’s been at the blessed oracle’s temple for about six months, which is not enough time for him to learn control of his blessing, and it would’ve felt too abrupt in my opinion.

it’d feel like a convenient time skip with no actual consequences or downsides, and it would’ve made their eventual reunion fall kinda… flat? or it wouldn’t be as impactful, you know? like this, we actually get to experience his absence, we get to see seunggi and the crew’s reactions to his absence, rather than just have it be part of a time-skip, and that will make their future reunion that much sweeter~

also jihan and seunggi family feels, and haeseon and seunggi best friends feels i'm sAD :(((((((((

even if we go north next week, i'm sAD :((((((

:(((

:(


	6. chapter 5 - Winter Chill

before we get to the chapter, I'd like to address some of you guys' reactions to this week's brief delay: while I'm fully aware that you guys are using your hard earned money to read these chapters, I hope you can understand that I am only a human being. Sometimes, things happen in my life that prevent me from writing, such as the incident on Wednesday (if you happened to see exactly what it was about, please refrain from mentioning it; I'm trying very hard to keep it together, and bringing it up won't do any good), and when that does happen, I will delay a chapter. That, however, does not mean I will post less/month. I've stated that I will upload one chapter/week, aka four chapters/month, and even with this delay, that's the exact amount you guys will be getting.

I understand that there's a different kind of "atmosphere" surrounding delays due to the fact that you're paying for it now, but when I clearly state that I will still be uploading a chapter this week, only a few days late, I hope you can accept that and be content. I also hope that when I say I'm "delaying a chapter due to personal reasons that keep me from sitting down and writing", you guys can trust that it's not simply because I "don't feel like writing", but because I'm dealing with actual real life incidents that are more pressing than meeting any deadlines. I shouldn't have to specify exactly what those personal reasons are for anyone to understand that it's serious.

I take my writing very seriously, as I'm sure those who followed me during the time I was writing tStS already know, but there are some things in my life that take precedence. And even if, for whatever reason, I would ever actually have to miss a chapter one week, I would double-upload the next. Four chapters/month is what I've promised, and it is what I will deliver. If the prospect of me being a few days late with an upload every now and then is a dealbreaker, I will understand if you choose to unsubscribe.

One last thing: the whole purpose of me uploading tStN to Patreon has never been about making money. It has never been because I want to benefit from my story's popularity. I've stated it on twitter several times, but since some people still seem confused, I'm saying it again; I'm uploading tStN here to ensure that the same plagiarism and theft I faced with tStS doesn't happen again. I fought tooth and nail with several different people and websites administrators when the people on their sites refused to take down their re-uploads/unauthorised translations of tStS. Here, I have far better security since tStN stands behind a paywall, and re-uploading paid content is an issue most website admins take far more seriously than re-uploading "free content on the internet" (this is what the admins of one site replied with when I asked them to delete a re-upload, that "this is the internet, deal with it"). After several months of contemplation, I finally settled on Patreon. I'm not here to make money or make a career of being a writer on Patreon, I'm here because it's the safest option for me and my stories.

mKAY so now that that shet's over and done with, we can focus on the important stuff aka tHE SONGBIRD GOING NORTH AYYYYY—

not gonna lie i actually felt cold while writing this chapter like dayum i am nOT looking forward to visiting finland for christmas, i'm gonna freeze to death ;____;

bUT ANYWAYS

LET THERE BE SNOW AND ICE AND FLUFF AND THE N O R T H 

-

Haeseon couldn’t remember the last time he had been so cold.

A month at sea had taken the August further north than he had ever been, to the icy waters off the coast of Russia. The beginning of winter had come and gone seven days prior, with snow falling silently onto the vessel to shroud its black wood and sails. It looked odd, to see the usually dark ship so pale, but it suited the ocean better; the sea itself looked colder, the water’s colour darker and far more sharp than it was in the east.

When Haeseon sighed through a shudder, his breath turned to mist in front of him. He was wearing three layers of the warmest robes they had managed to find in Shanghai before taking off, and they were barely enough to keep him warm. It was worst in the night, when whatever small amount of heat the sun exuded disappeared beyond the horizon. Not that they saw the sun very often; on most days, it hid behind white clouds so heavy, they looked like they would never give way for clear skies again.

The sea was so different here, and in spite of its winter chill, Haeseon couldn’t help but adore it every bit as much.

He turned away from where he’d been standing by the figurehead and walked along the rail, his arms crossed and hands tucked against his chest to keep all the warmth he could. The wool of his robes wasn’t very thick and he did not fancy urging his feathers to grow under so many layers, but he knew he would soon have to, lest he go cold all the way to his bones.

“We will see each other again,” Talya had told him months and months ago, “in the north, where the chill will freeze your pretty feathers.” When he saw a patch of frost spreading along the August’s rail, Haeseon realised that should they sail any further north—which they were going to—Talya may very well have been right.

“It’s a whole different ocean up here, isn’t it?”

Haeseon turned to Qasim, who was seated on a crate by the foresail mast. He was utterly unperturbed by the weather, even without the warm furs he had traveled in. He had given them to Seunggi a week prior when he had seen him shivering in the thin layers of his eastern robes. The quartermaster had been surprised, the rest along with him, but Haeseon suspected it had been a manner of apology from the northerner for the way he had spoken about Kyujang

“The sea is too green in the east,” Qasim said with a smirk, as if it was a thing of smugness. “Here, it shows its true colours.”

“I see,” Haeseon said, knowing he would gain nothing from arguing with a man such as Qasim. Not that he took any offense; the ocean was beautiful here, he would not deny that. “Are you not cold?”

Without his furs, Qasim wore nothing but a layer of wool cloth and leather, with a wide collar that bared his neck and part of his shoulders. The dark skin of his cheeks was red with chill, but he merely shrugged. “Not enough to do something about it,” he said simply. “After sixteen years of sailing the northern seas, I’ve grown used to being cold.”

Haeseon parted his lips and closed them again, curiosity resting on the tip of his tongue. He wasn’t certain if it was a question Qasim wanted to hear, thus he hesitated, but in the end, he couldn’t help it. “You were not born in the north,” he said slowly.

Qasim quirked a brow, the smile on his lips growing wider. “Right you are,” he said.

Haeseon hesitated again, made uncertain by the northerner’s lack of elaboration. “May I ask you where you are from?”

A bark of laughter spilled from Qasim’s lips, short and wholly amused. “You’ve been at sea for nearly a year now, Yun Haeseon,” he said when he sobered up, “yet you’ve kept better manners than plenty of those who remain ashore with the respectable folk.” He laughed again when Haeseon frowned at him, uncertain if he was being mocked or not. “I’m not insulting you,” he said, grinning. “I’m simply amused.”

“I see,” Haeseon said again. Another shudder of cold prickled at his spine, beating away some of his shyness. “Where are you from, Qasim?”

The northerner nodded as if he was content. “Egypt,” he said and nodded when Haeseon’s eyes grew wide. “Surprising, isn’t it? Halfway through the life I’ve lead so far, I traded endless deserts of sand for ice and snow, and I’ve not looked back since.”

“When we first met, Talya said you were once a sailor,” Haeseon said, foregoing his hesitation in favour of his curiosity. “She said you grew bored of the law.”

“She’s right and wrong,” Qasim said. “I never was a sailor, but I did serve the law, and I did grow bored of it.” By the way he snorted, Haeseon's eagerness to learn must've been obvious. “I joined my kingdom's military force when I was nine years old and became an officer of intelligence under the Egyptian king's command. I was fiercely competent,” he said easily, “and I spoke nine languages, so when a summons came from the north and requested assistance in capturing their new Cardinal, I was the first one to be considered.”

“The new Cardinal,” Haeseon echoed. “Do you mean—”

“Of course I do,” Qasim said with an impatient wave of his hand. “At the age of fourteen, Talya Sabelsdottír was already so fearsome and powerful that all the northern sailors couldn't keep her in check.” His words were spoken with over-exaggerated awe, but there must've been truth to them as well. Haeseon had no doubt about that. “He who was my king sent me north to help them however I could, claiming it would place the northern sailors in our debt. After all, a favour is fine thing to have for an unclear future.”

There was smugness to his tone again, but Haeseon did not bite onto the lure the northerner cast his way. “I see,” he said for the third time.

“I was sixteen when I first met her,” Qasim told him. “With my illusions, I had fashioned a trap and she had fallen into it. I had her in the palm of my hand, yet when I approached her and told her as much, she just… did not care. She was alone and backed into a corner, but all she did was laugh and tell me how impressed she was that I had managed to lure her out.” He emitted a sound that was half a chuckle, half a scoff. “She was amused,” he said. “For the brief moment we had her in our grasp, she carried herself with nothing but amusement and interest, as if she was eager to learn everything she could about us.

“Then she changed into her Blessing’s form and fought her way free. She killed five of the sailors I was with, but she didn’t touch me. I was confused. I couldn’t understand why she had left me alive; after all, I was the one who had captured her in the first place. Wouldn’t it make sense to kill me before anyone else?” He heaved a sigh and shook his head, and then he was smiling again. “I understood why when we met again, barely a fortnight later,” he said. “This time, she was the one to catch me in her trap, and instead of killing me, she asked me to sail with her.”

A memory from months and months ago sprang to Haeseon’s mind, in which Talya walked with him along the streets of Shanghai and asked him to come north with her, as part of her crew. “And you accepted,” he said.

“I did.” There was no trace of hesitation to the northerner’s agreement. “She was fascinating,” he said, “far more so than anyone I had ever met under the servitude of the law. I saw her life and I saw how it made her, and I decided I wanted it as well.”

His tone was casual as could be, but they brought a smile to Haeseon’s lips, one he couldn’t quite suppress. To so readily cast away one’s prior life had to require more than boredom when it meant you would invoke the wrath of all those you’d betray in doing so, and given the position Qasim found himself in now, there was but one conclusion for Haeseon to draw. “You fell in love with her,” he said cheerfully.

The northerner huffed as if it was the most ridiculous thing he had ever heard, but when he spoke, he did not deny it. “Call it what you will,” he said and shrugged. “I boarded her ship and helped her push back the sailors who had first summoned me to the north to defeat her. There were no laws to it, no rules I had to abide by. Talya gave me the freedom to do as I pleased.”

Haeseon was hardly even trying to stop the smile tugging at his lips now. “When did you marry her?” he asked.

“Two years later,” Qasim said without pretense, “when I realised she was bearing my child.”

“I hope I will have the chance to meet him,” Haeseon said, remembering how Talya had gushed about her son the very first time they had met. “After we have made sure Talya is safe.”

“You might be disappointed,” the northerner said with a lopsided smirk. “That boy takes after me far more than he does his mother.”

It was a jest, surely, but Haeseon found the notion ridiculous all the same. Even if what Qasim said was true, it was not something that would cause him to think badly of their child. He had half a mind to tell the northerner as much, but thought better of it; Qasim would likely laugh at him and dismiss his attempts to convince him he did not care. Thus all he did was shrug and say, “That’s not so bad, is it?”

Instead of laughing, Qasim grimaced and feigned a shudder. “Spare me your good manners, Yun Haeseon,” he said and flicked his hand in a shooing motion. “They make my skin crawl.”

Haeseon snorted, although uncertain if he ought to be amused or affronted. “If you say so,” he said and tipped his head in a small bow at the northerner before turning on the heel and making for the galleys in search of the others.

The rest of the crew were huddled up close within, sitting as close to one another as they could to share each other’s warmth. Jun was standing by the stone pit he had fashioned for the sake of boiling water whenever he needed it, either unaware or pretending to be unaware of the sullen gazes the others threw at him, jealous of the warmth he was basking in while stirring in a large pot over the fire.

“Haesae,” Seunggi said in a voice pitched high and whining. “It’s cold.”

“It is,” Haeseon agreed and made his way over to bury his hand in the quartermaster’s hair. He nudged the gilded flower Seunggi had braided into the locks around his temple and fastened with string. It made him smile. The quartermaster had vehemently insisted on having it just there, claiming it was as if he could hear Kyujang's voice encouraging him as long as the flower sat close to his ear. Haeseon had fastened the strings, and laughed at how well the flower matched not only his gilded mask, but the blonde of his hair as well.

“It will only get colder,” Jun called from over his shoulder. “I've asked Jihan to pull into a harbour along the coast of Russia so we might acquire proper garb, but that stubborn fool is—”

As if the captain of the ship had heard him all the way from the confinements of his quarters, a sudden song of the organ piano drowned the rest of Jun's words. The cook rolled his eyes and turned back to the stone pit, and Seunggi emitted a small chuckle, his teeth clattering around it. “Jihan hates the cold,” he said. “Winters in the east are bad enough for him, but now it is colder still, so he's sulking in his quarters.”

Haeseon knew it well enough. The chill affected Jihan far worse than it did him; he would quiver even in the night, when they lay in each other's arms beneath four layers of wool blankets. He was always tense, his muscles incapable of rest in the cold air, and his tension made his head ache, which in turn made him more irritable than usual.

“It sounds as if he's taking out his frustrations on the piano,” Yeonshin said and threw a snide glance up at the ceiling. The chill made him irritable as well, or then it was the loudness of the music on the still northern sea. “He’s hammering on it rather than playing.”

“I like it well enough,” Haeseon said, smiling primly when the surgeon shot him a miffed glare. “And you’re exaggerating.”

“Am not,” Yeonshin retorted with all the maturity of a five-year old.

“Would you rather he come down here and complain about the cold to you directly?” Daewon asked from where he stood next to the stone pit with Jun, holding a tray of herbs and dried berries for the cook to stir into the pot. He looked quite content to have been chosen to do the task of a wooden stool, seeing as it earned him a spot next to the fire.

Those gathered in the galleys answered as one, protesting the thought of having Jihan sit in their midst just then, as if they truly believed he wouldn’t stop talking about how cold it was. Their reaction had Haeseon laughing, shaking his head as he made for the door. “I’ll tell him to play more gently, then,” he said. “And that you all think he complains too much.”

His words prompted a fresh wave of protests, one he closed the door on with a bright giggle before making his way up to the quarterdeck. He greeted Lucya by the helm—being of Russian descent had made her far more resistant to the cold, thus she had volunteered to guide the ship’s way—and paused for a moment outside the captain’s quarters to listen, the smile on his lips ever present.

He loved Jihan’s music, no matter the pace or tune. It made the canary in him rear its head and flutter in glee, a thrill of sorts spreading from his chest to the rest of him. It made him want to sing more than he ever did without it, and the songs he wanted to sing were for Jihan and Jihan alone.

Quietly, so as to not disturb the captain in his practice, he pushed the doors open and slipped inside. He was immediately overcome by the urge to laugh; Jihan had dragged every wool blanket off their bed and pulled them in layers over his shoulders until he resembled a bear where he sat hunched over the organ piano’s keys. 

The song drowned the sound of his footsteps as he made his way over to the piano and the blankets hid him from the captain’s peripheral sight. Haeseon stood behind him for a long moment, simply watching his fingers fly over the keys, deft yet stiff from the winter chill, until he decided to pull his beloved out of his state of concentration by pressing his cold hands to the back of Jihan’s bare neck.

“Fucking piece of—” A terrible cacophony rose from the piano when the captain startled so violently he smacked his prosthetic hand down on the keys. Wide-eyed, with his breath passing as if he had ran for hours and hours, he whirled around in his seat and stared up at Haeseon, who withdrew his hands only for the sake of using them to muffle his giggle. Slowly, Jihan’s shock morphed into a petulant scowl. “You scared the shit out of me, songbird,” he said loudly.

It took Haeseon a moment to sober up from his chortling. “I truly hope I did not,” he said when he did, and giggled again when the captain grimaced at his words.

Scoffing, Jihan turned back to the piano, muttering something that sounded like bloody impossible under his breath. He didn’t resume playing, only rubbed his hands together to bring out whatever heat his good hand could on its own.

When he said nothing, Haeseon placed his hands on the captain’s shoulders and leaned some of his weight onto him. “Are you sulking?” he asked, failing to keep the teasing undertone out of his voice.

“No,” Jihan said.

Haeseon hummed in thought. “Are you certain?”

“No.”

The smile was impossible to fight then. Haeseon walked around the piano stool and leaned to the side in an attempt to get a better look at the captain’s face. When Jihan stubbornly refused to meet his gaze, Haeseon heaved a light sigh, and promptly sat down in his lap, easily straddling his thighs. “I’m sorry for startling you,” he said.

Jihan’s surprise lasted only for a brief moment before it shifted into something amused, his right brow quirking up. “Do you believe I’ll forgive you if you do this, songbird?” he asked dryly.

“Yes,” Haeseon said without pause, nodding.

The sigh the captain heaved was far greater than needed be, sounding more like a groan than anything else. “Well,” he said and placed his hands on Haeseon’s waist to help support him where he sat, “I can’t exactly tell you you’re wrong.”

Haeseon smiled and the captain did as well, small as it was. Some of the tension faded from Jihan’s frame, but not enough for Haeseon’s liking, so he took his hands off his shoulders and buried them in his hair instead, stroking the dark locks and reveling in the way Jihan’s eyes slipped shut.

Haeseon had helped him paint his hair black again upon their departure from Shanghai. Yeonshin had brewed a concoction of black tea and sage, and Haeseon had washed the captain’s hair with it over and over, rubbing the dark liquid into the silvery strands at his temples and scalp until Jihan’s locks had been black as night once more.

When his fingers brushed against the skin of the captain’s neck, he shuddered and curled away from the touch. “Cold?” Haeseon asked quietly, but did not cease his ministrations.

“I can see your breath in the air when you speak, songbird,” Jihan said and huffed. True enough, a stream of mist billowed out from his mouth when he did. “I think that’s answer enough.” His jaw tightened beneath Haeseon’s fingers, but he did not turn away this time. “Do you think the cold would go away if I drank my weight in rice wine?”

“Certainly,” Haeseon said with a hum of feigned thoughtfulness. “But so would the rest of your senses, and I quite enjoy talking to you. Would be a shame if you lost that ability.”

Jihan snorted at that. “Talking,” he repeated. “Is that why you’re seated in my lap right now, songbird? To talk?”

“It’s one of the reasons,” Haeseon said and smiled, innocent as he could be. “I also wanted to banish your cold.”

His words had the captain’s eyes growing narrow in suspicion, his thumbs pressing a bit firmer into Haeseon’s waist. “This wouldn’t happen to be another one of Seunggi’s brilliant ideas, would it?” he asked slowly.

Haeseon couldn’t help but laugh, because this was indeed something the quartermaster would attempt to coax him into doing. He enjoyed seeing his brother turn flustered and would often cajole Haeseon into playing part of his little schemes to draw a reaction out of a poor, unsuspecting Jihan.

“Not this time,” he said when he sobered up and leaned in to capture the captain’s lips in a kiss, slow and deep and wonderfully warm. The hands on his waist tightened their hold when he ran his tongue over the seam of Jihan’s lips, and by the time they parted, the captain’s cheeks were flushed red. “I’m capable of having my own brilliant ideas, Choi Jihan,” Haeseon murmured.

“Don’t I know it,” Jihan said. He dipped his head to press his lips against Haeseon’s jaw in an open-mouthed kiss, a feverish warmth left in his wake every time he moved along the lines of his neck. “I learned my lesson months ago, after you waltzed into these quarters wearing my po robe.”

“That was—”

“Wearing only my po robe.”

“As I said, that—”

“Wearing only my po robe and nothing else.”

“Jihan.”

“With a flimsy little knot to keep it from baring you all the way down to—”

The kiss Haeseon pressed against his lips was far firmer than the first one, and very effective in putting an end to the captain’s teasing. Jihan groaned into it, a sound that turned into a shuddering gasp when Haeseon pushed his hands beneath the neckline of the captain’s robes to touch the skin of his back. Humming in content, Haeseon slipped his tongue past Jihan’s parted lips, a shiver of his own creeping down the length of his spine until it reached his gut and lit a warmth beneath his skin. It was addicting, truly, the sensation of the captain’s body pressed flush against his, the taste of him on his lips as he returned the kiss with equal passion.

Haeseon pushed his hands further down Jihan’s back, until he could reach where he knew his name was written in ink.

Songbird.

His bliss lasted only until Jihan slipped his hands underneath Haeseon’s robes and shirt so he could touch his bare skin, cold fingers pressing into the tension in his abdomen. Just as the captain had, Haeseon gasped and broke their kiss, a meek sound leaving his lips upon the end of his quiver. “How lovely,” Jihan said, smirking in triumph of coaxing such a reaction out of him. A retaliation of sorts for startling him with cold hands not minutes prior. “Are you cold, songbird?”

“No,” Haeseon huffed. He didn’t quite manage to muster enough annoyance to his voice; it left him in a far higher pitch than intended, and he knew his cheeks were flushed red, just as the captain’s were. “Not when you’re so close.”

The look in Jihan’s eyes was reverent to say the least, the smirk on his lips mellowing into something softer. “Look at you,” he said quietly and kissed his blushing cheek. “I would have you right here, against the piano, until not a trace of this bloody chill would remain in you.”

Haeseon’s lips parted around a quivering exhale, a rush of heat spreading all the way to the tips of his fingers. Jihan’s words were like a fan to the arousal burning faintly in the pit of his stomach, urging it to flare until it made him numb. “Why don’t you?” he asked, whispering the words against the captain’s temple before kissing him there.

“We’re not alone on this ship, songbird,” Jihan said. Contrary to his words, however, his hands drifted from their place at Haeseon’s waist, his right sliding up until he could press his thumb against his nipple. “Nevermind the crew; there is a guest in our midst.”

It was hard to see the logic in his words when the captain was so deftly feeding the heat in his chest and groin with every touch, every press of his lips against Haeseon’s neck. It made it far harder to think, which might’ve been why the words Haeseon finally managed to speak were, “I can be quiet.”

Jihan stilled for a moment before he laid his brow against Haeseon’s shoulder and drew an unsteady breath. “Fuck,” he muttered.

“If you go slow,” Haeseon said and kissed him, hungry and wanting, “I could do it.” He knew what his words would do to the captain. He knew they would cajole him to do as he had promised, to press Haeseon against the piano and have his way with him, and with pulse after pulse of hot arousal, it was all Haeseon wanted just then. “I could be quiet for you, Jihan,” he whispered against his lips, and reveled in the crack it dug into Jihan’s facade.

The sound the captain emitted was akin to a snort, but it was not in mockery or amusement. No, it was the same sound Jihan always made when Haeseon said something he liked.

“You’re bloody impossible, songbird.”

Something he really, really liked.

The stool scraped hard against the wooden floor when Jihan rose from it, jostling Haeseon from his lap. Before Haeseon could do so much as emit a startled little sound, the captain had slammed the lid of the piano shut over the keys and crowded him against it, pushing until there wasn’t a hairsbreadth of space left between them. Jihan kissed him, hard, his hands gripping at his hip and holding him in place when he rocked against him.

The sound of pleasure that stirred in Haeseon’s chest was lost in their kiss, his promise of silence nearly broken already then. He wanted more, so much more, so he wrapped his legs around Jihan’s waist and pulled him closer still, until he could feel the captain’s arousal against his own. He wasn’t quite hard yet, but it felt wonderful all the same. “Jihan,” he said, as quietly as he could, when Jihan pressed against him again. “Jihan.”

“Cap’n!”

Every muscle in Haeseon’s body drew itself stiff as stone, a startled chill dousing all the warmth in him upon the voice, accompanied by a quick rap on the quarter’s doors. With a meek yelp, he jerked back and nearly hit his head against the piano’s pipes at the same time as Jihan barked out a very loud, very aggravated, “Fuck off, Xiao!”

A startled sound echoed through the doors, followed by a long moment of nothingness. The two of them stared at each other in waiting, Haeseon holding his breath while the captain drew heavy lungfuls of air in an attempt to calm himself down from his state of arousal. The silence that followed his outburst was long enough to convince them the carpenter had gone, but just as Jihan leaned in to kiss Haeseon again, another set of taps hit the door, albeit far more hesitant.

“Sorry, cap’n,” Xiao called through the doors, having at least the sense to not pull them open, “but ‘s a northern ship comin’ at us fast from port side. Li’l Gi said they’re pullin’ out axes ‘n swords, ‘n readyin’ their cannons fer attack, ‘n—”

“Yes, fine, I hear you,” Jihan said loudly. He groaned, as if the notion of having to act as captain in battle just then was the most tedious thing in all the world. Resigned, he moved Haeseon’s legs from around his waist and pushed himself upright, although not before pecking the corner of Haeseon’s mouth, too quick for him to respond to in his lingering surprise. “Next time, songbird,” he said gruffly, “I will bolt those doors and not give a fuck if we come under attack.”

The chuckle that spilled from Haeseon’s lips was breathless and tinged with confusion brought on by the sudden turn of events. “You won’t,” he said and stood, straightening his robes where Jihan had tugged them out of place. “And I would never expect you to.”

The captain parted his lips to say something more, but then the rapping of the door sounded again, and he swallowed whatever words he’d wanted to speak and heaved an agitated sigh. “Will you come?” he asked and made for the doors.

“Yes,” Haeseon said, following. He took his bow and quiver from the wall by the doors and strapped the latter around his waist. Every trace of his arousal had vanished quickly enough; the knowledge of an imminent battle tended to have that effect. “Of course.”

Once outside, it was hard to believe the deck of the August had been so silent not much earlier. The members of the crew were running back and forth in preparation, carrying dry gunpowder from beneath the deck and readying their weapons for combat. There was a tension to the way they moved, a stark contrast to their usually practiced grace, and Haeseon did not know if it came from the cold itself, or from the prospect of facing a northern crew.

Even from so far, Haeseon could heard their voices. The northerners were cheering, loud and rough, much in the same manner Talya’s crew once had done when racing to take on Son Jukan and his warship. Their ship was faster, he could tell as much when he leaned out over the rail to gaze at their opponents. With a smaller, thinner ship, the northerners crossed the still sea with greater speed.

“They’ll reach us within five minutes,” Seunggi called from halfway up the main mast shrouds, Haeseon’s spyglass pressed to his eye. “They’re preparing to board us with hooks and spears.”

“Make sure we have enough gunpowder to keep the cannons firing until their ship goes down,” Jihan said loudly. He stood by Lucya at the helm, where he could best ensure his command was followed. “Be ready to rain hell on these bastards as soon as they come within—”

“You don’t want to be doing that.”

As one, the crew turned to look at Qasim, who hadn’t bothered to move from his seat by the foremast. He looked wholly amused by their frantic pace of preparation, a spiteful smirk on his lips as he waited for Jihan’s reply.

“If I wanted your opinion, I would ask for it,” the captain said through gritted teeth. “I don’t need you telling me to throw myself into the sea and let them have our ship.”

Qasim’s laughter was carefree, as if he couldn’t hear the cries of battle coming from the rapidly gaining ship to their left. “I didn’t tell you to throw yourself into the sea, Choi Jihan,” he said. “I’m telling you to let them board. Once they realise the precious cargo you are carrying,” he paused to gesture towards himself, “they won’t lay a hand on anyone of you, or your precious ship.” He grinned. “Trust me.”

Jihan scoffed at that, as did many of the crew, Yeonshin included. “Trust you,” the captain repeated in a voice laced with disbelief.

“If you fire first, they will tear your ship asunder,” Qasim said, unperturbed by the reaction of those around him. “You don’t know what northerners are capable of.”

“I know plenty,” Jihan bit out and threw a glance over his shoulder. The northern ship was close now, their voices and the ringing of steel meeting steel loud in the ocean’s silence. “Fuck, why would they stand down because of you?”

Qasim’s smile grew wider still. “Hold your fire,” he said, “and you will see.”

Haeseon had half a mind to beg Jihan not to listen. The northerners were close enough now that he could get a proper look at them, and they did not look likely to be reasoned with. They were frightening, even from afar, so much so that he found himself retreating as far away from the rail as he could, his hands trembling around the grip of his bow.

By the helm, Lucya spoke a few quiet words into Jihan’s ear. Her pale eyes were trained on Qasim, the ghost of a crease knitting her brow as she spoke. Every word had Jihan’s scowl deepening further still, but when she was done, the captain hissed a curse under his breath and raised his hand over his head. “Let them board,” he said to his crew, his jaw clenched tight. “Let them board, and do not strike unless they do it first.”

The crew were far from content with his order, but there was not much time for them to complain or mutter in protest. As soon as the command had been spoken, the northerners’ ship was upon them.

Hooks of hard iron were thrown onto the deck and pulled into the rail in a sturdy grip to bind the two ships together. The foreign ship was smaller by far, its deck lower, but the northerners climbed up the August’s hull without struggle, using axe and knives to scale the black wood until they could flood the ship like a tidal wave.

The men that boarded were the stuff of nightmares. Freakishly tall and built as if they’d been carved from stone, they were nothing short of monstrous with their horned helms, wild, untamed beards, and warpaint smeared across their faces and arms. They hardly needed their axes and blades of copper and steel; they looked like they could’ve torn Haeseon limb from limb with their bare hands.

They did not charge. Grim as they were, they stilled when they noticed the August’s crew’s lack of retaliation or attempt to dispel their boarding. They looked like bears where they stood by the rail they had climbed over, hulking and towering over the lot of them, some chortling spitefully while others appeared suspicious by the easiness of it all.

A man with a face scarred worse than death and no left ear shoved his way to the front, barking harsh words in a tongue Haeseon could not understand. He glared at the lot of them, each in turn, until his eyes settled on Jihan. He must’ve realised he was the captain, for he turned to him instead and shouted the same words, spittle falling to his great beard.

Before Jihan could so much as part his lips, Lucya raised her voice and spoke in a far icier tone than Haeseon had ever heard. She looked at the man with contempt and her words must’ve conveyed it as well, for he bristled and took several steps towards the helm, waving the axe in his hand around in a threatening manner.

“That bastard better not lay a hand on ‘er,” Xiao said gruffly, his own axe held in a fast grip at his side. Next to him, Hisashi was ready to draw his blade at any moment, and up in the shrouds, Seunggi had a hand on one of Yeonshin’s pistols, which he had hidden in his sash.

When the northerner came too close, Jihan stepped into his path and snapped at him in the same harsh tongue as Lucya had. His words were clumsier and not as clearly spoken, but the northerner understood him well enough, if the poorly suppressed outrage on his face was any indication. He leaned down into Jihan’s face and barked his retort, which his own crew was quick to mimic, and soon enough, the entire ship was a mess of incoherent shouting.

Neither side understood a word of what the other said, but it hardly perturbed them in their want to shout every insult under the sun at one another.

“Do something!” Haeseon said shrilly and turned on Qasim, who was following the ordeal with great amusement, grinning from ear to ear as he watched the two captains squabble without actually raising their weapons. Only upon Haeseon’s prompt did he cease his chortling. Instead, he heaved a sigh as if it was the most tedious task he could’ve ever been given.

“As you wish, Yun Haeseon,” he said. He rose from his seat and stepped into the midst of the chaos, calm as ever as he made his way over to the helm. He patted one of the northerners on the arm as he passed him, and while the big man turned sharply to see who had dared lay a hand on him, as soon as his eyes found Qasim, they grew wide and he snapped his mouth shut.

Every northerner followed the first one’s lead, falling silent one after the other as Qasim made his way past. By the time he reached the two captains, they were the only ones still speaking in raised voices, the northerner now red in the face from all his shouting while Jihan looked like he was close to rupturing the veins in his neck from the sheer amount of pressure it took to not reach for the daggers at his waist.

“Pardon the interruption,” Qasim said in the voice of someone speaking of the weather. “As amusing as this is to behold, I have a feeling it will turn into a bloodbath if you two don’t calm down soon.”

Just as the rest of his crew had done, as soon as the northern captain looked at Qasim, all the rage faded from his features and was replaced by utter shock, his eyes growing wide as saucers. He stared at him for a long moment before he found his voice again. When he did, Haeseon was shocked to hear such a quiet, awed tone come from a man who’d been shouting deafeningly loudly not a minute prior.

Qasim replied curtly to whatever he had said, jerking his head towards Jihan and the crew as he spoke. The northern captain clung to every word he spoke, and as soon as he was done, the big man smacked his axe-wielding hand flat against his own chest and turned to Jihan, making some kind of declaration before bowing his head deep.

Shocked, Haeseon watched the rest of the crew follow their captain’s lead, repeating whatever words he had spoken and lowering their weapons as they bowed as well. In the blink of an eye, every trace of hostility was gone from the lot of them. With it went the atmosphere that had made them seem more like monsters than men, leaving naught but a crew that reminded Haeseon of the men who had sailed alongside Talya.

With a few more words from Qasim, the northern captain turned away from Jihan without a word and barked a command at his crew. Three of them climbed back down to their ship only to return moments later, bearing furs and leather in their arms. They tossed the garb at the August’s deck, right at Haeseon’s feet, and with that, the great captain spoked reverent words of farewell before making his way back to his ship.

“Are you surprised?” Qasim asked, the smugness of his grin back in place as he watched the August’s crew’s shock at the northerners’ sudden departure. “I told you they wouldn’t lay a hand on you as soon as they realised I was amongst you.”

“Who the fuck are you to them?” Jihan asked, staring from the furs to the disembarking northerners in disbelief. “Why would they listen to you, let alone give us furs to wear?”

“I’m first mate and husband to the Long-toothed Tiger of the North,” Qasim said simply. “You’re not in the east anymore, Choi Jihan. Where you’re from, half of your people may respect you while the other half fears you and wants you dead. Here, half of us would kill for our Cardinal while the other half would gladly die for her.”

He shrugged and spread his arms to his sides, gilded teeth bared in a grin. “Welcome to the true north,” he said and tipped his head in a mock bow, “friends of Talya Sabelsdottír.”

-

*u* talya is a powerful bish we been knew *u* oh my god i'm so excited to portray the differences in how the northerners treat their cardinal in comparison to how the people in the east treat jihan, because it's hUGELY different and i just, damn, i'm so excited *u*

ALSO

also sjdhjsdhjsdh cockblocking our two lovebirds is actually hilarious :D::D:D they've been all smoochy and shet and it's all lovely, but then they can't get down and dirty because they live a pirate's life and have to deal with other shet, like random attacks from people, or random assholes aboard their ship, or whatever you can imagine~~ poor souls~~~~

note: the po robe jihan mentions is a traditional korean overcoat of sorts. it's long and loose (think a thin, more billowy bathrobe), and oh so neat for haeseon to wear

NEXT WEEK!!! NEXT WEEK WE MIGHT GET TO SEE TALYA AGAIN!! i mean i'm not sure, i was thinking they would meat talya at the end of this chapter, but, uh, stuff happened and it got out of hand and then it was at 7k after meeting the random crew first, sO

we'll see what happens :D:D::D cheers~~!


	7. chapter 6 - A Northern Welcome

mKAY so i legit can't sit still i'm so hyped about this chapter holy shet i've been waiting for this for sO LONG and it's only chapter six but oH MY GOD BE STILL MY HEART BEFORE I COMBUST  
i have no music for the beginning of the chapter but uh once they reach the mountain ridge, there's tHIS THING that you have to play on repeat over and over:

Two Steps From Hell - Starfall 

HOKAY GO TIME

-

“When you told us your captain was in danger,” Jihan said dryly as they pulled into the bay, “this wasn’t quite what I’d imagined.”

More than a dozen ships of northern make were tied along the bay at the farthest reach of the fjord. The closer they sailed to its end, the longer the ships had clearly been at land; ice had seeped from the mountains flanking the river into the waters, gripping onto three of the vessels and keeping them bound to the shore. The square-shaped sails were white with frost and the decks covered with snow, as if winter itself was working to swallow them whole.

“They’re beautiful,” Haeseon said and leaned out over the rail for a better look. At his side, Seunggi did the same, all but exuberant at the sight of so many strange ships. Every vessel was oblong and lined with round shields and oars, with a snarling dragon’s head at the bow instead of a figurehead. They were completely open, with no roof or place to hide from the snow. The mere sight made Haeseon shudder, even if he knew the northern pirates carried tents to raise and sleep beneath, and furs to keep them warm on the sea.

“They were not here when I left,” Qasim said in a voice far too casual. “I left my captain in her place of hiding in the mountains south of Ísafjörður nearly three months ago, and she was alone but for our crew then.” He was hardly upset to see the gathering of ships, a prim smile tugging at his lips. “It seems as though the north has come to defend their Cardinal.”

“Does this mean we can sail back to the east?” Yeonshin asked through clattering teeth, clutching his furs tightly around his shoulders. “Or do we still have to lose our fingers and toes to the cold first?”

The northerner’s reply was smug. “I’m afraid you’re still needed right here,” he said. “Even if the whole of the north flocked to my captain’s side, this is a matter fit for Cardinals.”

“Then Jihan can stay,” Jun piped up, pausing his task of rubbing his hands together for long enough to send their captain a snide look, “while the rest of us return to our seas.”

“Or perhaps I could throw you into the sea,” Jihan retorted, although the heat of his words were lost in the shudder that overtook him halfway through his threat. “Fuck, but it’s cold.”

Haeseon pressed his lips together in a valiant attempt to not smile. He exchanged an amused look with Seunggi before turning back to the line of northern ships to resume his marvel. Due to his Blessing’s feathers, the cold was not as hard on him as it was on the rest. With the exception of Xiao, who had no need for manmade furs when he could so easily change into his own, the eastern pirates had no similar Blessing to help keep them warm through the northern winter. Just as it did Jihan, the cold made the lot of them irritable; during the past fortnight, Haeseon had grown quite used to the crew’s incessant bickering over the most ridiculous matters.

“Do you know where Sabelsdottír is now?” Jihan asked of Qasim once he had told Daewon to pull in as close to shore as he could and drop anchor. “We sailed past Ísafjörður two hours ago, and if the northern pirates have managed to find her, I doubt she’s still in hiding.”

“I don’t,” Qasim said easily, “but if the northern pirates have managed to find her, so can we.”

“Yes, because we are all so very eager to climb snowy mountains in search of your captain,” Yeonshin muttered under his breath.

Haeseon had half a mind to tell him that for all the whining he did about the cold affecting Jihan’s behaviour, the surgeon sure complained a lot himself. He settled for a smug little smile and turned away with the intent to help the crew prepare the dinghies, but came to a halt upon the sight of Hisashi. The swordsman stood hunched over next to the main mast, the whole of his form quivering from the winter chill. He clutched at the edges of his furs with fingers pale and red with frostbite.

Hesitating, Haeseon took a moment or two to steel himself before walking over to him, shrugging out of his furs as he went. “Hisashi,” he said. He tried his best to not falter before the withering glare the swordsman sent his way and held out the furs. “Take these. They’re bigger than yours, and warmer, so if you’re cold, you can—”

Hisashi interrupted him before he could finish his offer. “I don’t want them,” he spat and turned away.

“But—”

With a sigh and a muttered curse, the swordsman pushed away from the mast and shoved his way past Haeseon without another word. With the protest on the tip of his tongue never making its way further, Haeseon watched him go, furrowing his brow in agitation. He understood Hisashi was angry with him, but ever since the evening of the raid of the Zhoushan stronghold, the swordsman had vehemently refused every last one of his attempts to make peace.

He wanted to make things right, but he did not know how.

“It’s been nearly two months already.” The furs were plucked out of Haeseon’s hands by Jun, who frowned in discontent as he shook them free of frost and draped them back over Haeseon’s shoulders. “Do you want me to speak with him, canary?” he asked. “He is being deliberately stubborn at this point, and it isn’t doing anyone any good.”

“No,” Haeseon said with a sigh. “Thank you, Jun, but I want to make things right with him on my own. Besides,” he managed a small smile, “I don’t think he’d like it if I had someone else talk to him on my behalf.”

“He’s being stupid, that’s what,” Seunggi said, frowning in the same manner as Jun. “He has fought worse with all of us before, and we reconciled faster than this. Do you remember when he first boarded this ship? He even fought with Jihan. He got the whip three times back then as well, because he wouldn’t stop taking his arguments too far.”

The mention of Hisashi’s punishment had the agitation in Haeseon’s chest flaring, a wave of guilt rising to accompany it. His skin prickled with the urge to scratch at it and he squirmed with discomfort, masking it as an icy shudder. “Let’s help the others prepare for stepping ashore,” he said, keen to shift their attention. “We’ll be warmer if we move around.”

The bay was clear of smaller boats such as the dinghies the crew used to reach land. Their absence had Haeseon wondering if the northern pirates had swam ashore from where they had cast anchor. The very thought made him shudder. With the fjord freezing along the shore, the water must’ve been terribly cold.

“There is a hidden pass that leads up the mountain,” Qasim said and pointed towards a rocky hill at the base of the mountain, the stone covered in ice and snow. “It leads to the ridge where my captain is supposed to have been waiting.” To Haeseon, the hill looked utterly unclimbable, with no path to walk in sight, and the northerner must’ve noticed his confusion, for he smirked and said, “The snow makes it hard to see to those who don’t know what to look for.”

“‘Tis a good thing we have someone who does know, then,” Daewon said mildly, a patient smile on his lips, made pale by the cold.

“Oh yes, we’re so lucky,” Jun said before Qasim had the chance to retort with something undoubtedly smug and full of sarcasm. “We’d be even luckier if Sabelsdottír has kept a fire burning wherever it is that she’s hiding.”

Outnumbered, the northerner simply shrugged and motioned for them to follow him towards the base of the mountain. The crew followed as best they could; for every step they took, their feet sank deep into the snow and slowed them down. Uphill was even worse, and it wasn't long before the lot of them were out of breath with exertion.

Sweat clung to Haeseon's brow and made the cold feel that much stronger. The hairs at his temple grew wet and then stiff with frost, chilling him in spite of the warmth that came from their climb. Even so, he could hardly bring himself to complain. Qasim led them along a path hidden between walls of ice and stone, glittering in the rare light of the sun. It was beautiful, so much so that even when Yeonshin slipped on a piece of ice and pulled Haeseon down with him into the snow, he could only laugh.

When they paused their ascent to rest between two towering walls of ice, Seunggi leaned against Haeseon’s side to whisper in his ear. “Kyujang would like this place,” he said with a wistful smile, absently fiddling with the golden flower in his hair. “He wouldn’t be able to sit still for long enough to rest.”

Haeseon nodded. “We’ll bring him here one day,” he said and reached up to wipe a trail of frost from the corner of the quartermaster’s eye. For once, his hands were perfectly steady. “We’ll bring him here, even though we will regret it when he insists we climb to the top of the mountain.”

His words made Seunggi laugh, and Haeseon was at peace.

The sun had just began to set on their ascent when Haeseon caught wind of something other than stone and ice. “There’s something up ahead,” he told the others, who immediately came to a halt. They all looked at him as he closed his eyes, frowning in concentration as he tried to place whatever it was he had sensed. The wind was howling, but beyond its shrill whistle in his ears, there was something more, a low sound, brief yet continuous.

A rhythmic pulse, like the beat of a heart.

“It’s as if the mountain is alive,” he said, far too quietly for the others to hear. An iciness prickled along the length of his spine and made him shudder, and by the time it had passed, the sound was gone.

“I can hear it, too,” Xiao said and stood upright from his hulking form, turning his head this way and that. “‘S sounds like a gayageum. Or an erhu.”

Haeseon frowned at that—it was not the sound he had heard—but upon the carpenter’s prompt, several from the crew voiced their agreement. He tried again, and it was true; rather than the steady beat he had heard before, the sound he caught now was like the song of a gayageum, barely separable from the howling of the wind.

“It’s a langspilið,” Qasim said, nodding. “A kind of zither. When played with a bow, its sound resembles that of a violin or fiddle.” He looked at Haeseon as he spoke, and only when Haeseon returned his stare with brows arched in question did he turn away, smiling wide as ever. “The langspilið is my captain’s favourite instrument. We must be close.”

“Finally,” Jihan huffed and resumed walking. His robes and furs were stiff with frost, as was the rest of the crew’s garb, and the prospect of proper rest spurred them to climb the rest of the way in good pace.

Haeseon lingered for a moment to stare up at the mountain towering over them. “Strange,” he said to himself before following after the rest.

The higher they climbed, the louder the song became, and before long, they could hear voices as well, echoing from somewhere in the mountain’s ridges. When the sun touched the horizon and began to fade, a glow of fire gave away their destination, much to the relief of everyone in the crew. “My captain looks to be hosting to be hosting the feast of the decade,” Qasim said, grinning from ear to ear before beckoning them around the last wall of ice.

A feast it was indeed. The mountain ridge was filled with life, people and tents and fires filling every stable cranny of it. There was hardly any room to walk. The men that had gathered here were much like the ones that had boarded the August upon their arrival north, tall and bearded and dressed in horned helmets and furs, but these were in a far better mood. They were laughing and hooting, raising slanted mugs undoubtedly filled with spirits.

There had to have been at least a dozen different crews present, yet there was not a single trace of hostility to be found.

“Oh, thank the gods,” Yeonshin exclaimed at the sight of the many braziers, his shuddering form immediately losing some of its tension. It was swift to return, however; he had spoken loudly enough for some of the northern pirates to hear. They turned to the August’s crew, their glee turning into glaring suspicion at an alarming rate, but as soon as they noticed Qasim, they flew up from their seats and hurried over to drag him into their midst, cheering in delight.

“Follow me,” the northerner called to them from over his shoulder, all but preening at the joy his mere presence was spreading. He walked along the pirates of his seas as if he was a king, basking in their excitement and chortling at their rushed attempts to speak with him and gain his attention.

“Is it possible he looks even more like a prick now than during our ascent?” Seunggi asked in a mutter. He hadn’t quite forgiven the northerner for his words about Kyujang yet, even after Qasim had given him his furs at sea. 

“I’d say it’s very possible,” Jihan said dryly. “Let’s go. We wouldn’t want to keep his highness waiting for us lowly peasants.”

Had Haeseon been less nervous, he might’ve giggled at the captain’s petulance. He fell in by Jihan’s side and stayed as close to him as he could as they trailed after Qasim and his admirers. It was amazing, truly, how even here, so far away from the seas where Jihan was most known, the northern pirates seemed to recognise him. Either that, or then the sheer ambience that clung to him made them move aside to let him pass without protest.

“You’ve never sailed with anyone who wasn’t a Cardinal,” Daewon said when he noticed Haeseon’s awe. “It may be hard for you to understand, but those who serve a captain of low infamy can easily tell a Cardinal apart from the others, no matter if they’ve seen them before or even heard their name.”

While Haeseon’s eyes grew wide in wonder, Jihan scoffed and threw a snide look at the first mate. “Don’t listen to him, songbird,” he said. He looked almost abashed. “It’s only because we’re strangers that they—”

“Songbird?”

The familiar voice had Haeseon pulling to a halt in the middle of a step and turning away from Jihan at the same time as the rest of the crowd ahead of them parted to leave the way clear to the heart of the gathering. The largest of the fires had been built there, the air around it glowing and quivering with heat, and in front of it, dressed in the finest furs of black and brown, stood a delightfully familiar figure with her arms flung around Qasim, as if they had been interrupted halfway through a passionate kiss.

It seemed as if the entire feast had been built around the Northern Cardinal. The crowd of pirates spread in a circle around her and their tents behind them. Every last one of them, seated or standing, had chosen a spot that would allow them to see her and hear whatever she would say. They all faced her and no one else, as if there was nothing they would rather do than chance a glimpse of Talya Sabelsdottír.

Her eyes glowed the same fiery orange as the flames behind her, and as soon as they met Haeseon’s, her lips spread into a joyous grin full of sharp, white teeth. “You’ve come!” she cried in delight and broke away from her husband to bound his way, delving into the ring of northern pirates to all but throw herself at Haeseon. “My darling Haeseon, you’ve come to the north at last!”

She pulled him into her arms and smothered him in her embrace, laughing as she pressed her cold nose against his cheek. He returned it as best he could, winded by shock and struggling to keep up with her as she dragged him towards the fire. “Ta-Talya,” he said, his voice muffled against the collar of her furs. “Talya, I—”

Whatever stumbling words he’d been about to speak were lost when she pushed him away from her to hold him at arm’s length. For a moment, Haeseon wholly lost his voice. She looked so different to the last time they had met. She looked so different to what he had imagined. Her hair was longer, reaching all the way to the middle of her back, every bit as untamed as the mane of her Blessing’s form. Chains of gold and precious gems hung from her ears and neck, and every patch of skin left bare by her furs and leathers was covered in paint of blue and white, wild patterns twisting around her cheeks and over her eyes.

She looked so different, yet she was the same. Even with the goddess of the dead wanting to claim her life, Talya Sabelsdottír was strong and cheerful, and free.

“Talya,” Haeseon said again, his smile growing to match hers as his shock dwindled. It went slowly, but as it did, relief and warmth blossomed in his chest, born out of the months of longing to see his friend finally fading now that he stood before her. “I’ve missed you.”

Talya laughed and pulled him back into his arms. This time, he returned her embrace readily, clutching onto her until the northerners all around them raised their voices, not in cheering, but in confusion. Their tongue was foreign to Haeseon’s ears, but it was not hard to imagine what they were asking. After all, he was a stranger from another side of the world—who was he to their beloved Cardinal?

Grinning from ear to ear, Talya turned to the lot of them and spoke without letting go of Haeseon’s hand. Her voice was over-exaggerated and hushed with marvel, and her body moved with it, her free hand sweeping left and right and then up towards the sky, where she clenched it into a fist. As she spoke, the northerners’ faces grew slack with awe, eyes growing wide as they turned to stare at Haeseon.

His previous nervousness came barrelling back at the sudden attentiveness with which they gawked at him. He fidgeted slightly where he stood, wanting to slip behind Talya and out of sight. “What did you say to them?” he asked in a whisper, tugging at her hand.

“The truth,” she said brightly. “I told them you are the one who stopped the Rabid Conflagration’s fire from burning all of the east by calling on the strength and power of Þórr, our god of storms and thunder, and bending his lightning to your will.”

“You—” A string of unintelligible protests spilled from Haeseon’s lips, embarrassment rushing hot to his cheeks and ears. “Why would you tell them that?” he asked in a shrill whisper, foregoing all prior hesitation in favour of attempting to slip out of sight by hiding behind Talya. She only laughed and turned around to rob him of his reprieve. “I told you, that wasn’t how it happened!”

“They’ve all heard this tale before, Haeseon,” she said. “Do you think this is the first time I’ve spoken these words?” She raised his hand up towards the heavens and held it there in a gesture mortifyingly similar to one of victory. “Now, they finally get to see who you are.”

She let him go in favour of pulling the furs off her shoulders to drape them over Haeseon’s instead, and she looked so proud then, it had tears inexplicably springing to his eyes. When the northern pirates began to cheer and shout, it became too much for him to bear. With a sound like a whine, he cast down his gaze and nearly tripped over his feet in his rush to scurry over to where they had left Jihan and the rest of the crew.

“Save me,” he pleaded against the captain’s shoulder, the whole of his face aflame with his embarrassment. “Tell them to stop looking.”

Before Jihan could as much as open his mouth, Talya hushed her northerners with a finger to her lips and looked at the two of them, her eyes glittering with delight. “Be careful now, boys,” she said and waved at Qasim, who complied with a roll of his eyes and repeated her words in their tongue. “This pretty bird belongs to the eastern fox, and the fox to the pretty bird. You may lose your hand if you put it in the wrong place.”

If possible, the warmth in Haeseon’s cheeks grew hotter still when the northerners began to snicker. It wasn’t only them; behind them, Seunggi and Xiao were positively giddy in the face of Talya’s teasing. “Jihan,” Haeseon said, just shy from wanting to throw himself off the mountain. When he glanced up at the captain, he thought he saw a flicker of amusement cross his face, but it was gone in an instant.

Talya made her way over to the two of them, her prior humour fading to make way for an air of seriousness. She was still smiling, as she always was, but the pirates of her seas knew the shift in the air as well as Haeseon did. “Choi Jihan,” she said and placed a hand to her chest. “I welcome you and your crew to the north. You are my guest, and no one on these seas will turn their blades on you for as long as you are here.”

Just as Jihan had once done for her in his time of need, Talya went to her knees and bowed until her brow touched her hands where they were braced against the cold ground. “You have my gratitude,” she said, her words clear with practiced perfection, “for coming all this way to lend me your aid when I need it most.”

The very air seemed to freeze upon her humble act. Not a single one of the northern pirates uttered a sound or even drew breath, shocked in the face of her foreign gesture. It reminded Haeseon of the way Talya herself had reacted when Jihan had bowed in gratitude before her. She had sputtered and told him to stand upright, made flustered by the mere thought that he would bend his knees in such a manner.

“There is no need to go so far,” Jihan said, citing the very words Talya had said to him at the time. Just like then, there was amusement to his voice, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips when Talya sat upright with a grin of her own. “Our journey here was inevitable. We owe you a debt, and even if we did not, the songbird would never be at peace knowing you were in danger.”

Haeseon left Jihan’s side to offer Talya his hand and pull her up from the ground. She took it and did not let it go again once she stood upright, but tugged him along towards the heart of the mountain ridge. “Come with me,” she told the August’s crew. “I will find you good furs and leather to wear so you will not be so cold. Then you can join the feast and eat however much you like.”

On their way to what must’ve been Talya’s tent, Haeseon recognised some of the northerners as part of the Northern Cardinal’s own crew. He saw Lárus, whose blonde hair had grown out a fair bit after being shredded by Son Jukan’s Blessing’s winds. He sat next to another familiar face whose name Haeseon could not remember, a man with a face like a fox who saluted him with a tip of his mug of ale as they passed.

“Where did all these people come from?” Qasim asked once they were inside Talya’s—and undoubtedly his—tent, far bigger than the rest. “You were supposed to be in hiding in my absence.”

“I was,” she said and let go of Haeseon’s hand to rummage around some casks and crates in search of proper garb. “Njáll Ingvar’s crew sailed to Ísafjörður a month after you had gone and saw Refur when he was buying herbs. Refur brought him here.”

“And the others?”

Talya shrugged, grinning. “They came, one after the other,” she said and pulled out a pair of heavy furs from her crate, examining it with a critical eye. “They have kept me company.”

“And told the whole of the north where to find you, no doubt,” Qasim said, his carefree facade slipping in the face of his worry.

The Northern Cardinal turned and cooed at her husband, as if he was a precious thing to behold just then. “They would’ve found me either way,” she said and walked over to Haeseon to hold the furs against him. “No one in the north can be still now.” Her smile was sharp as a blade’s edge. “Hel walks the earth in search of their Cardinal. The east has come and the west is stirring with the news, the queen’s sailors are losing their heads, and,” she could barely contain her glee, “the Black Snow, Freyr Sabelsson, is finally coming home.”

-

me: *is yelling*

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHHAHAAAAAAAA IT'S TALYAAAAAAAAAAA—

the amount of willpower it took to not have talya lounge on a whole throne draped in luxurious furs with all the northern pirates gathered around her like her own personal army…. hECK the temptation was so great omg talya deserves a throne >:T but she made a whole deal about "there is no king of pirates" in the last book so she would unfortunately not sit on a throne >:T bah >:T consistency sucks >:T

bUT WHO CARES IT'S TALYA OH MY GOD I LOVE HER SO MUCH SHE'S HAESEON'S BIGGEST HYPEWOMAN AND THE BIGGEST DAMN MOOD

also

aLSO

LOOK AT ALL THAT PLOT SHE JUST CASUALLY THREW OUT THERE AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER. LOOK AT IT. PLOTS, I'M LIVING FOR THESE P L O T S.

i need to calm the hECK down before i rupture an artery or something oh my god

oH but one last thing: y'all probably figured it out, but the god Þórr that Talya mentions when talking about haeseon using lightning to strike down Oseong is the traditional spelling for "Thor" x))

ALRIGHT SEE YOU NEXT WEEK AHHHHHHHHH—


	8. chapter 7 - Courage

HOKAY, so in case you missed the thing when I posted about it on Twitter, someone tried re-uploading every chapter of tStN from here into a google drive folder and then share it with everyone who wanted it. I would like to remind everyone that that is NOT allowed, and that if I find out, I will take the same measures I did with the person who attempted it this time.

If you didn't know this and are curious about what those measures are, you can read about it here.

OKAY.

me @ me when starting tStN: okay so remember that haeseon’s deaf in one ear, he’s got the scars left from the lightning on the right side of his neck and shoulder, and his hands tremble every now and then.

me every other chapter: …. oH SHIT WAIT HAESEON’S HALF DEAF SHIT GO BACK—

me seven chapters later: wAIT I FORGOT ABOUT THE SCARS AHHHHHHHH—

i am a failure.

jshdjshd but for real tho i need to keep post-its of these things on my screen because i forget it all the tiiiiime, like i remember seunggi's eye just fINE but when it comes to haeseon it's like nAH HE JUST PEACHY FINE AIN'T NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS BOI AHHHHHHHHH—

same deal as last time lel i don't have music for the first half bUT FOR THE SECOND HALF I SURE DO

Vindsvept & Merrigan - Norrsken 

ON WITH THE SHOW

-

“So it is really true, then?” Yeonshin asked as soon as he had changed into the offered furs. He was far more content now that they were safe from the cold and the biting mountain wind, but even so, he didn’t quite manage to keep the dryness out of his voice. “There truly is a goddess of death walking the earth in search of you?”

Talya was wholly unperturbed by his irony. In fact, she seemed to share it. “It would seem so,” she said with a snort. “It is difficult to refuse the thought when the whole of the north believes it so strongly. “They all say it is Hel herself.”

A series of low mutterings broke out in the tent where they all sat crammed together. Talya and Qasim’s shelter was by far the biggest of the camp, but for a dozen pirates, there was hardly room to spare. Haeseon sat between Jihan and Seunggi, nervously fiddling with the sleeves of the furs Talya herself had chosen for him to wear. His crew’s skeptice made him nervous; he knew Talya and he readily believed her words, unfathomable as they were, and he did not like that the others did not.

Outside on the mountain ridge, the feast still carried on, every bit as loud and rambunctious as before.

“I didn’t see her myself,” Talya said and waved a hand in a dismissing motion. “I only saw her messenger, who gave me my warnings many months ago. He came from the darkness and went back to it when he had told me what he’d had to say. That same night, my ship burned and sank to the bottom of the sea.”

“I wonder,” Daewon said, frowning, “if it truly is Hel, why hasn’t she come for you yet? Why has she only sent a messenger your way, and not already come to kill you? I’m not saying she should,” he was quick to amend when Haeseon parted his lips to protest his choice of words, “but if she truly is the goddess of death, wouldn’t she be capable of claiming your life with ease? I can’t imagine mortals would be much of a hindrance for true deities.”

Still smiling in the face of their doubt, Talya nodded her agreement. “I wonder the same,” she said. “It is not the first time someone claims to be a god taken human form. Our gods are many, and many northern men like to think themselves their equal.” She chortled at her own words and turned to Qasim. “Do you remember the pirate captain who claimed to be Óðinn in disguise?”

“I do,” her husband said with a slanted grin. “For all his boasts of grandeur and his rule of Ásgarðr, he sure fell easily when met with his seas’ Cardinal.”

Talya emitted a short bark of laughter at that. “He did,” she said before facing Jihan once more. “This is not the first time. Claiming to be a god is easy for those desperate for fame and the respect from those better. I’m not sure even I believe these rumours either, but it is different this time.”

“How?” Yeonshin asked. Next to him, Seunggi was staring at the Northern Cardinal with awe while clutching to the sleeve of Haeseon’s furs, as if he needed his touch to ground himself in Talya’s presence.

“Because she does what the goddess of death can do,” Talya said. “All the others who have claimed to be of godly descent have had nothing but their words to make people believe them. But this woman, she has a goddess’ power. Everything she touches,” she snapped her fingers in a demonstrative manner, “dead.”

A brief silence followed her words, before Daewon raised his voice again. “It could be the work of a Blessed Rune,” he said slowly.

“No,” Qasim said without pause. “The Rune of Death has its own wielder already, in the deserts of Libya.” His smile was all but brimming with amusement. “There is a wild dog that roams those wastelands. It cannot die, and even the faintest graze of its teeth has been proven to end in death.”

Haeseon couldn’t tell if he was jesting or not, a confusion mirrored by surely everyone but Talya, who laughed in delight at their flabbergasted stares. “Blessings are not only for humans,” Qasim said. “When you visited the Blessed Oracles’ temple, you must’ve seen their six-legged tiger, yes?”

“Vahana,” Seunggi said immediately, speaking in a tone of fondness.

“Yes, Vahana,” Qasim echoed. “She bears a Blessing as well, one given to her by the Rune of the Fire Ant. It gave her her red fur and her two additional legs.”

Although it was hardly such a shocking thing, to know the tiger’s six legs were a product of a Blessing, Haeseon had never truly considered it may be so. His surprise made Talya laugh. “Qasim knows many things,” she said. “Even things he has no business knowing.”

Seunggi pressed his lips together around what was surely a snarky agreement to accompany the sharp glare he sent Qasim’s way. It went unnoticed by Talya, who turned back to Jihan to resume her tale. “I don’t need you to agree with me or my words,” she said, grinning. “My gods are not yours, and if you can’t believe they can exist in the realm of humans, that is your choice. However it is, I still need your help to stop this woman who claims to be Hel.”

“You have our help,” Haeseon said immediately, and turned to Jihan only as an afterthought. “Doesn’t she?”

“Of course,” the captain said, albeit with disbelief still present in his tone. “But first I want to know what you meant when you said the west is stirring. What does Elyas Lowe have to do with this?”

The mention of the Western Cardinal’s name had Talya rolling her eyes so hard her head moved along with it. “He doesn’t like me very much,” she said and scoffed. “He has hated me ever since our meeting in Shanghai. Now, there is a goddess wanting my death. Of course it is a cause he is glad to support.” She waved a hand around as if to swat away an irritating fly. “He has been sailing close to the borders of the north. He’s thinking it over, if he should cross into my seas and lend his strength to Hel in her task to kill me.”

“He’s too much of a coward to face you directly,” Jihan said. “He would never dream of crossing unless there is a guarantee that he will get what he wants without placing himself in harm’s way.”

“Just right,” Talya said and nodded. She was still smiling, not a care in the world about the prospect of a fellow Cardinal craving her death. “He hasn’t come yet. There is a friend of mine who sails the same waters as he. He will tell me as soon as Lowe enters the north.”

Jihan took his time to contemplate her words, muttering to himself under his breath. “What will happen now?” he asked when he was done. “You have no ship to sail away from this land, and you don’t know where Hel is.”

“I don’t need a ship now,” Talya said. “I’ve been without one for months and Hel has not yet found me. She must be waiting for something. The last of her warnings came three months ago.”

A grimness seeped into her smile, and Haeseon shuddered at the memory of what Qasim had told them about the third warning. He pressed himself more firmly against Jihan’s side just as Yeonshin spoke. “Could one of the pirates outside not lend you their ship?” he asked. “They seem to adore you. I can’t imagine they would refuse.”

His question had Talya laughing. “They have offered,” she snorted when she sobered up, “but I don’t want to take someone else’s ship. It is theirs to captain, not mine. Mine will be built again after we have sent Hel back to her realm to lick her wounds. And,” she added, “I will be fine either way. My son will reach this land any day now. I can board his ship and sail with him when he does.”

“Your son,” Haeseon said, his curiosity piquing. “What is he like?”

It was hardly a question fit for such a solemn discussion, but Talya brightened like the moon at night and leaned forward in her seat. “My son is everything I could ever have asked for,” she gushed. In her excitement, she seemed all but a child. “Freyr is only fifteen years old now, but already he is strong as me and wise as Qasim, and knows how to earn my northerners’ respect. He has sworn to take the title of Cardinal from me, do you know? He promised he would make me yield it to him in my defeat.”

Haeseon wasn’t quite certain precisely what kind of defeat she spoke of; it was odd to imagine her so giddy about the prospect of losing a battle against her own child. He wanted to ask, but Talya went on her cooing before he had the chance, only in a whole different tone of voice. “He is also very handsome,” she told Haeseon after throwing a smug glace Jihan’s way. “He is tall and brave, and if you were not already married to the Black Fox, I’m sure he could steal even your kind heart, Haeseon.”

Heat rushed to Haeseon’s cheeks with alarming speed, his face flushing red at the Cardinal’s blunt words. “We’re not—” he began, but the rest of his protest was lost in a burst of laughter from the rest of the crew. Yeonshin and Jin smacked Jihan on the shoulder while Seunggi fell against Haeseon’s side, cackling, and the lot of them ignored Haeseon’s shrill attempts to make them stop.

“We’re not married!” he said at last, suddenly feeling far too hot in his furs. He was dreadfully aware of Jihan’s gaze boring into the side of his head, even as the captain told his crew to shut their mouths. “We haven’t—I don’t even know if—we’re not!”

“Oh,” Talya uttered, and the genuine surprise with which she looked at the two of them made Haeseon want to sink into the frozen ground and never emerge again. It lasted only for a moment before her smugness returned. “Does that mean my son is free to court you however he wants?”

“It does not,” Jihan said, and the loudness of his voice might’ve been a product of the others’ persisting laughter. From Seunggi’s wide grin, however, Haeseon knew there was more to it. “Married or not, the songbird is still mine, as I am his.”

Haeseon doubted his face could grow any hotter. In his shyness, he pressed his face against the captain’s shoulder and nodded against it, hoping no one would expect a more coherent answer from him.

Either his reaction or Jihan’s words made Talya laugh again, wonderfully cheerful. “I know,” she said and leaned back in her seat. “I would never encourage my son to come between you. And if he did, I would scold him and throw him into the sea.”

When Haeseon chanced a peek at her from the safety of the captain’s furs, she met his eyes and smiled so fondly, it turned the embarrassment in him into a comforting warmth. He returned her smile with a small one of his own, but did not sit upright just yet.

Next to him, Seunggi fidgeted a little, as if he was struggling with himself. He parted his lips and closed them again, hesitating, until he finally found his courage and addressed the Northern Cardinal. “You said your son is coming home,” he said, every bit as shy as Haeseon when Talya turned his way. “Wh-what do you mean when you say home? Isn’t the sea every pirate’s home?”

“It is,” she said and nodded, her smile growing softer still at the quartermaster’s apparent nervousness in speaking with her. “But not all pirates are born from the sea. Some still have a place on land they call home, and it is as important as the ship on which they sail. You sailed past a harbour town when you came here, yes?” She waited for Seunggi to nod. “The town of Ísafjörður is where I took my first steps. It is where my mother and father took their first steps, where my sister took hers, and where my son took his. It is a home to us as much as the sea is.”

As she spoke, Jihan’s shoulders grew tense where Haeseon was leaning against him, his posture turning rigid. While Seunggi stared at the Northern Cardinal with his eye all but twinkling with awe, Haeseon looked up at Jihan, whose expression had shifted from its prior calmness. His jaw was clenched and his brows knitted, and he did not notice Haeseon’s gaze until he spoke. “Jihan,” he said, quietly so no one else would hear. “Are you alright?”

The captain blinked out of whatever stupor had overtaken him and looked down at Haeseon, as if he was surprised to find him there. He sighed and made himself ease out of his tension. “I’m fine, songbird,” he murmured, even though the stiffness of his smile made the opposite so obvious. Haeseon parted his lips and closed them again, and settled for only nodding against the captain’s shoulder.

He would ask him later, when there were not so many ears around to hear.

He turned back to the others in time to hear Yeonshin ask, “You have a sister?”

“I did,” Talya said, nodding. “She died long before Freyr was born.”

She spoke with such ease, it took Haeseon a moment to realise just what she had said. “Oh,” he uttered in his hurry to express his condolences. “I’m sorry, Talya.”

All the Northern Cardinal did was smile and usher away his words with a wave of her hand. “It was long ago, sweet Haeseon,” she said. “There is no need for you to look so sad.”

In spite of her bright tone, a nervous silence settled over the August’s crew, broken only when Talya stood from her seat and smacked her hands together. “If you have nothing more to ask, you should rest for the night,” she said. “I will send my northerners on their way, and my crew will help you raise tents for you to sleep in.” Before any of them had time to rise from their seats, she made her way over to Haeseon and pulled him to his feet. “You will come with me,” she said cheerily and pulled him against her side. “There is still so much for us to talk about.”

Haeseon giggled and squeezed her hand. “Yes,” he said and followed easily as she dragged him towards the tent’s exit. He managed a wave at the others before he was pulled outside into the cold, a shudder immediately rippling up his spine.

“I told you you will be freezing your feathers off here,” Talya said, grinning as she stopped to rub her hands roughly along his arms to warm him up. “Are you alright? I have more furs for you if you need them.”

“No, I’m alright,” Haeseon said, and again when she pursed her lips at him. “I promise, Talya, I’m not cold. My feathers are keeping me warm underneath all these layers.”

She nodded in content, her smile quick to return. “Good,” she said before turning to face the crowd waiting without, all of whom had gone silent when Talya and Haeseon had stepped out from the tent. She spoke loudly and laughed when the lot of the northerners voiced their protests at being told to leave.

While she herded them together and made them pack up their own tents and whatever they had brought with them, Haeseon looked around the ridge they had raised camp at. It was a beautiful place, with the mountain rising high around them and only a small ledge giving view of the sky and land beneath. The day’s clouds had vanished and left a canvas of blue and black above them, smattered with bright stars and a crescent moon.

Someone swept past his side and he turned to look, only to have his heart jump into his throat when he was greeted with the sight of what must’ve been an elk’s skull. He jerked back and nearly let out a squeak of fright, but then the skull shifted and he recognised the familiar figure who wore it for a mask. It was the shaman who sailed aboard Talya’s ship, the vǫlva as Talya had called her. She was dressed far lighter than the rest, with only a plain cloak draped over her thin frame, paint of blue and white dry and cracked along her neck.

She peered at Haeseon from behind her mask, the decorative beads clattering against it when she inclined her head. Haeseon stood still, his nerves drawn tight under her gaze, and it took no small amount of will to not jerk away when she raised her hand and reached for the furs around his neck. She did not touch him, her fingers merely ghosting along the lines of his collar. Under her breath, she whispered words he couldn’t understand all the while drawing an invisible trail from the right side of his neck down to the center of his chest. She touched him there, ever so briefly, before she withdrew her hand and turned to leave.

Haeseon watched her walk away with his heart beating a frantic pace in his chest, having not yet settled after the fright of her sudden appearance. He knew she was kind—she had treated his wounds after Talya had saved him from Son Jukan’s warship—but her appearance made him uneasy. The skull mask and her untamed hair, along with the paint that looked so old and dry it may as well have been part of her skin, it all served only to make him uneasy.

With another shudder to break him out of his nervous state, Haeseon turned back to Talya to watch her go about ushering the northerners towards the path that would lead them all down the mountain. They were still complaining—at the very least it sounded as if they were—but no one refused their Cardinal’s commands.

“Come,” Talya said when the lot of them finally began their descent. She hooked her arm around Haeseon’s and tugged him along. “The sea is beautiful at night. You will love to see it.”

She spoke without pause all the way down, about everything from what she had been up to during the previous months to northern customs he and the August’s crew would surely experience while they stayed with her. She spoke of the lights that danced across the northern skies and made him promise to sing for her when the auroras would show themselves.

When she mentioned the warnings from Hel, Haeseon pulled her to a halt and took her hands properly in his. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Qasim told us what the three warnings took from you. I’m sorry for your losses, Talya.”

The first hint of sorrow came to her then, her smile bearing a sadness that made Haeseon’s heart ache. “Thank you, my darling Haeseon,” she said and squeezed his hands. “Do not look so sad. Even if they were taken in Hel’s name, they were good souls. They will not suffer at her hand, but rest peacefully in the realm of the dead. After all,” for a brief moment, her face grew hard, “she is here now. For as long as she wants me and my life, the souls of those I lost will know peace.”

There was a grim promise to her words, one that would surely end in naught but pain. For whom, Haeseon did not know, and the uncertainty left him tense long after they had resumed walking.

True to Talya’s words, the sea was indeed a beautiful sight in the night’s blackness. The white snow and ice stood out even in the dark and the sea was the same colour as the sky, all its stars reflected in the water. Even more stunning was the sight of the many northern ships casting off to sail back to open sea. They did not immediately open their sails, but sat in lines along the deck and rowed until they had reached far enough away from the bay to properly cast off.

One by one, they left, with every crew shouting and waving at Talya as they went. She replied in kind, enthusiastic and eager as she bid them farewell. It was as if they all of a true family, brothers and sisters parting with the promise to one day meet again. The northerners loved her, truly they did, and it made Haeseon smile to watch them shout words of fondness at one another until every last ship was out of sight.

“It is amazing how much they love you,” Haeseon said when the last vessel had disappeared into the night. “They came without summons or orders. They came simply wanting to ensure you were safe.”

Talya grinned at him, all sharp teeth and pink gums. “We take care of one another in the north,” she said. “Those who have sailed these seas the longest all know one another as friends or brothers. We fight—more than once have they struck against me and mine, and I’ve struck them in return—but when strangers come to our land and threaten one of us, we gather as family.” She exhaled sharply, her breath misting in the night’s cold. “If it is truly Hel, she is also one of us,” she said and scoffed, “but my northerners don’t know her. They don’t know her like they know their Cardinal.”

“Amazing,” Haeseon said again. It was so different than what he knew in the east, where hardly anyone held even an ounce of love for their Cardinal. No one had cared when Jihan had lost his arm and faced the Rabid Conflagration, yet the mere prospect of Talya being hurt had drawn over a dozen crews to her side.

He was about to tell her just how incredible he found it, but a prickling sensation settled in his nose and made him sneeze before he could utter a single word. Chuckling, Talya made her way over to him and tugged at the furs around his neck to better angle them against his skin. “Not cold, huh,” she huffed and untied their binds to do them over. “Don’t think too little of the northern cold, Haeseon, or you will…”

Her voice faded when she moved the furs enough to uncover the scars spreading over the right side of Haeseon’s neck. She looked at them in silence, her smile softening as she carefully traced the twisting lines that marred his skin. They had hardly lightened ever since the bolt of lightning had carved them into Haeseon’s neck and shoulder, and the skin around them was still numb and without much sensation.

When Haeseon shuddered at her delicate touch, Talya’s eyes flickered up to his. “Do they still hurt?” she asked.

“No,” Haeseon said, “but it does feel strange.”

“Good.” Content, she withdrew her hand and resumed correcting his furs. “I can’t imagine it,” she said. She frowned, and when she was done, it was her turn to shudder. “I don’t ever want to know what it is like to lose your hearing.”

The air in Haeseon’s lungs froze, every last cell of him going cold as ice. He stared at Talya with eyes wide in shock while his heart beat uncomfortably hard against his ribs, as if attempting to flee the chill of his body. “What do you…” he began hoarsely, his voice like sandpaper in his throat. “What?”

Talya arched her brows, surprised by his reaction. “Your hearing,” she said again, her confusion so genuine. “Did I say it wrong? Your right ear.” She raised her hand to point to it, as if he needed her guidance to know. “You don’t hear from it, yes?”

“Yes, I—no,” Haeseon pressed out. His thoughts were racing like mad within his skull while the makings of panic brimmed in his chest. He looked around, as if anyone from the August’s crew would possibly be there to hear the words he had so diligently hidden for so long. “Ho-how can you know?”

Utterly bewildered, Talya stared at him for a long moment before answering. “It is very obvious,” she said slowly. “When we were speaking in my tent, the noise from my northerners outside made it difficult to hear, so you,” she turned her head a bit to the side, a subtle shift that angled her left ear towards Haeseon, “turned to hear me better. I wondered why you would do it, but then I saw the scars on your neck and knew.” The frown returned to her face. “The storm took your hearing from you,” she said, as if it hurt her. “I’m sorry.”

Whatever comfort her words might’ve offered him went unheard in his state of building panic. Haeseon reached out and took hold of her furs, clinging to them in a manner all but frantic. “You can’t tell anyone,” he said, his voice high and shrill. “Please. They don’t know. Jihan or Seunggi, or anyone of them.” His breath was sharp and laboured, as if he’d been running for miles and miles without rest. “They don’t know,” he said again, “and you can’t tell them. You can’t.”

In the depths of his mind, a voice screamed in pain as claws sank deep into his throat.

Talya was swift to place her hands over his and squeeze, pushing away her own surprise in favour of helping him settle. “Calm,” she said steadily and held his gaze. “I won’t say a word, so calm, Haeseon. Breathe with me.” She drew a deep breath and he did the same, filling his lungs with the cold winter air over and over until his heart ceased its task to beat its way out of his chilled body. “Good,” Talya said and squeezed his hands again. “Now tell me. Why have you not told them about your ear?”

Haeseon closed his eyes and swallowed hard against the lump in his throat. “At first,” he croaked, “I did not want them to be sad. I knew Jihan would blame himself for it. He already feels guilty enough. He believes I shouldn’t have had to be the one who…” he drew another quivering breath, “who killed Oseong. He thinks it should’ve been him. He thinks he should’ve been able to do it, and if he knew it all cost me my hearing, he…”

The memory of the aching way in which Jihan had looked at him for the weeks following his recovery had tears burning behind his eyes. “I wasn’t strong enough to watch him be ridden with so much guilt,” he whispered. “I wanted him to smile. I wanted all of them to be happy. With all that had happened to us, the last thing I wanted was to give them another reason to be sad on my behalf.”

He sat down in the snow when his legs became unsteady. Cold gripped at him immediately, but he did not care. “And then months passed and I didn’t tell them,” he said hoarsely. “I learned to hide it well enough. The crew… they’re always loud, so it wasn’t very difficult. But with Jihan…” He shook his head and attempted to pull his hands out of Talya’s, but she held them firmly. “I want to tell him,” he said, “but I don’t know how. The better half of a year has passed since it happened. It would hurt him more now, wouldn’t it? To realise I’ve been deaf in one ear all this time and he hasn’t known.” He sank his teeth into his lower lip to quell the sob that rose to his throat. “To realise I’ve kept it from him.”

Talya did not speak immediately. She only hummed and crouched down in front of him, drawing circles into his hands with her thumbs. “It will hurt him,” was the first thing she sad, and shushed him when he emitted a little noise of sorrow. “It is true. Tell me, sweet Haeseon,” she leaned forward, seeking his eyes, “are you afraid he will turn you away?”

Denial rose fast to Haeseon’s lips, but his words failed him before he could speak. It was a horrible thought, that Jihan would feel so betrayed by his secrecy that he would pull away from him. That he would look at Haeseon with contempt. That he would no longer call him songbird.

It was not an unfamiliar thought either, and so he curled in on himself and spoke, in a frail whisper, “Yes.”

“Then you’re being a little bit stupid, Haeseon.” Talya’s blunt words made him look up to find her smiling. “He would never turn you away,” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Gods, he loves you so much I don’t think he could ever imagine it. He will be angry, yes, and hurt, but the longer you go without telling him, the worse it will be. For both you and him.”

She let go of his hands to touch his cheeks instead, her hands cold against his frantic warmth. “Tell him,” she said. “Tell him why you did it, and ask him for forgiveness for keeping it from him. He will be angry and he will need time, but he will accept it and help you in any way he can.” She smiled at the pleading look in his eyes. “He loves you, Haeseon, you know this. When you love someone, you do not want to see them sad. He might not know it immediately, but with time, he will understand why you did it.” She pursed her lips in thought. “I don’t truly know him,” she said, “but I believe he would have done the same thing as you. He wouldn’t want to see you be sad because of him.”

When it became too difficult for Haeseon to stave off the tears brimming in his eyes, Talya caught them all with her thumbs. “Do not cry here,” she chided softly, her smile far softer than he felt he deserved. “Your tears will freeze on your cheeks, and everything will hurt more.”

Haeseon nodded, over and over, and managed a weak and hollow laughter when Talya leaned in close to press her nose against his cheek. “I will tell him,” he said thickly. The dread in his chest flared at the mere thought, but he forced it down. “And the others, too. I only…” He drew a trembling breath. “I need to find the courage to do it.”

“Good,” Talya said and slid her hands into his hair, her touch ever so gentle as she stroked his temples. “Don’t wait too long. A wound will fester if you leave it without care. This is like that.”

Again, Haeseon nodded. “I know,” he said, although he said it very quietly.

They sat in the snow for a little while longer, until Talya pulled him back onto his feet and brushed the snow off his furs. She was gentle in the way she coaxed him into climbing the way back to the mountain ridge, nudging him along whenever he grew nervous and began to fret the August’s crew would know his secret before he could properly tell them. She held his hand in hers and spoke words of comfort and reassurance, and by the time they returned to the camp, Haeseon was more at peace.

The others had already retreated into their tents, exhausted after the day’s climb and ruckus. Qasim and Larús were awake, seated around the burning brazier for their watch in the night. Upon their arrival, Qasim threw a glance at Haeseon and pointed to one of the newly raised tents, surely the one he was to share with Jihan.

“Calm,” Talya reminded him quietly when a flare of tension grew in him again. “Be calm, and find your courage at your own pace.”

In spite of his unsteady breath, Haeseon nodded and attempted a smile. “Thank you, Talya,” he said and gave her hand a final squeeze before walking over to his tent and pulling it open so he could step inside.

Jihan looked to be sleeping already, curled up in the many furs that had been spread over the snowy ground to keep out the cold. The tent was small, so much so that there was hardly any room for Haeseon to move apart from to lie down next to the captain. He was careful as he sat down, keen to let Jihan sleep undisturbed, but as soon as he had settled, the captain turned and curled his arm around Haeseon’s waist, as if it was an instinctive thing to pull him close in his sleep.

Tears rose to Haeseon’s eyes once more, but he blinked them all away.

When he adjusted the furs so they properly covered them both, Jihan stirred, reluctantly pulled from the deepest pits of his sleep. “Songbird?” he groaned without opening his eyes.

A ripple of tension went through Haeseon and he drew on every ounce of courage he had. He parted his lips, the words burning in his throat, but in the end, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t say the words he needed to say. Instead, he only hummed and pressed his face against the furs around Jihan’s neck, and hoped they would hide his tears should they fall in the night.

I will tell you, he swore in his mind as he listened to his beloved drift back to sleep. I promise, Jihan, I will tell you. When I’m brave enough.

-

:(

well :(

now i’m sad :(((

bEFORE YOU GET YOUR PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES, y'all saw this coming, i mean y'all knew he'll have to tell jihan and the others sOME day, and that when he does, they probably won't be too happy about it :(( it's difficult for him, because the selfless little songbird would rather go his whole life being half deaf without telling anyone if it meant they'd be happy not knowing :((((

pLEASE I LOVE HIM SO MUCH BUT HE ALSO NEEDS TO JUST UGH TRUST THAT HIS LOVED ONES CAN HANDLE THE SAME SHIT HE CAN >:T

well

let's not focus on that now

let's instead focus on the fact that tALYA THOUGHT THEY WERE MARRIED AYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY—i mean plot, yes, the plot with elyas lowe and hel and freyr and all those people. that plot, yes. not their non-existent marriage.

aHEM

LOOK AT ALL THESE BIG NAMES BEING THROWN AROUND WE HAVE ELYAS LOWE THE BIGGEST BITCH (like bitch in a negative sense) AND HEL AND SHIT'S GONNA GO DOWN IN THE NORTH AYYYYYYY—

UNTIL NEXT WEEK


	9. chapter 8 - Son

//deep breath

is go tIME!

-

Freyr Sabelsson’s arrival was a loud, spectacular, and bewildering affair.

With news of his approach having reached Talya five days into the August’s crew’s visit, they had promptly packed up the encampment and moved it many miles down the fjord, past the town of Ísafjörður, so that they could give her son what was, in her words, a proper greeting. With supplies fetched from the town and Talya having gone hunting for several hours the day before his arrival, they had everything they needed for a second feast in a span of barely a week.

Talya had all but danced around their new encampment, making sure everything was in order. Barrels of mead and mulled wine were stacked by the brazier, and Haeseon helped the northern crew dig a fire pit to roast the deer she had dragged home after her hunt. She never once ceased to speak of her son, even for long enough to let Qasim get a word in between.

For some reason, Haeseon grew more nervous for every tale he heard. It wasn’t the stories what made him tense; albeit wondrous in their own way, they did not stray far from what he had seen and lived through aboard the August. No, he suspected what made him fret was the fact that he was Talya’s son. Talya was Haeseon’s dear friend, and he wanted to get along well with her son.

The rest of the crew were affected by the atmosphere as well. While Jihan was oddly distracted amidst their preparations, the others grew more at ease in the northerners’ presence. Yeonshin watched with great interest as the vǫlva of Talya’s crew crushed moss and herbs and mud into a cooling salve for fevers. She allowed his audience without complaints; in fact, neither of them said a word throughout, likely by cause of sharing no common language.

Rather than seeing through whatever task he’d been given, Daewon would get lost in complicated discussions with Qasim about whatever they could think of. While Qasim spoke with naught but facts, Daewon countered with thoughts of philosophy, and while both parts fought with equal strength to prove their points, they seemed to immensely enjoy their arguments.

Lucya found herself in some strange courtship by Refur, the archer from Talya’s crew whose golden hair had grown quite a bit ever since being sliced off by Son Jukan’s winds. Much to Lucya’s apparent amusement, Refur insisted on helping her with just about everything, whether it be walking down a slippery slope or carrying her belongings. It may have been a simple courtesy considering her crippled state, but it had Xiao’s usual cheeriness turn to ire, and it wasn’t long before a seething Jun had to pull him and the archer apart from one another before they hurt someone.

The cook had scolded both of them while Talya only laughed, and Haeseon had worried, but later that night, the two of them had sat side by side, drinking deep from their tankards and laughing at some jest neither of them properly understood.

Then there was Seunggi, who, much to his own awe, was dragged along with Talya and Haeseon wherever they went. After Talya had asked him where his young companion was and the quartermaster had quietly told her he was learning control of his Blessing for the sake of their love, the Northern Cardinal had burst into a combination of cooing and encouragement and pulled Seunggi into a fierce embrace. She had admired the gilded flower in his hair and stated that Kyujang must love him with all his heart to show such determination.

Seunggi had sat down in the snow and cried, and Haeseon had smiled from ear to ear while Talya fretted and worried she had said something wrong.

The only one who made no effort to be at ease was Hisashi. He did not trouble or seek it out, but he was cold and snappish with whomever spoke to him. Unless it was Haeseon, of course, in which case he ignored him completely, only glaring at him with disdain before showing his way past. “Who put a stick up his arse?” Talya asked in a whisper, having watched the display, and all Haeseon could do was give an agitated sigh and tell her not to worry.

When the call finally came from Talya’s lookout that a ship had pulled into the fjord, the Northern Cardinal was just about ready to burst at the seams with excitement. She had dressed herself in her finest furs of black and let her vǫlva paint her bare skin with blue and black and white, and she guided the lot of them to the shore to wait a good hour before the ship finally came into view.

“There he is,” she said in an exhilarated whisper and pulled Haeseon tightly against her side. “My son has come home.”

The vessel was built in the same fashion as Talya’s, but three times as big, with twin masts standing in its midst. The sails were folded in now, the ship being carried forth by a row of two dozen oars on each side. The whole of the ship had been built from a pale wood that made it seem ghostly, all but ethereal, and atop one of the masts flew a flag with a white skull smattered with specks of black.

The Black Snow.

Along with the ship came the sound of a drum, its beat guiding the rhythm of the turning oars. For every pull, the men rowing called out the same word as one, a word Haeseon dimly thought must’ve meant something along the lines of “heave” or “pull”. The closer the ship came, the more nervous he grew. When a figure climbed up onto the rail by the dragon’s head figurehead, it took a startling amount of effort to not look away.

While Talya was far too exuberant to notice, Jihan stepped up next to him and placed a hand on the small of his back. “Are you alright, songbird?” he asked so quietly no one else would hear.

“Yes,” Haeseon said and attempted a smile. “I’m only… excited.” His words sounded off even to his own ears, and to mend his poor excuse, he parted his lips to ask Jihan the same question he had posed. The captain hadn’t been himself lately, ever since they had spoken with Talya upon their arrival. He was just about to ask, but the sound of water splashing tore his attention back to the shore.

Once close enough, a pirate had leapt from the rail of the pale ship into the water, completely uncaring of the icy chill that reached up to his thighs as he waded towards the shore where the lot of them were waiting. Just like the rest of them, he wore furs and black leather, although his were rimmed with gilded chains. His ears were lined with studs of gold and glittering gems, and he had tied his hair into tight braids along the left side of his head to keep the hair out of his eyes.

He was the spitting image of his father, only with fairer skin and eyes of green rather than the near black of Qasim. “Móðir,” Freyr Sabelsson said when he reached the shore, and he threw his arms open just in time to welcome his mother as she all but barreled against his chest. At fifteen years of age, he was taller than her by a head, but the force of her embrace had him staggering all the same, laughing as she babbled incoherently in the language they shared.

While they went about their reuniting, the pale ship pulled properly into the shore and cast anchor to let its crew disembark. None of them followed their captain’s lead; whereas he had gladly waded the few meters to the shore, his crew lowered elongated rafts of sorts into the water and rode those to dry land. When they stepped ashore, Talya’s crew went to greet them, calling out their names and cheering in welcome of those who sailed alongside their captain’s son.

The whole of Freyr’s crew made Haeseon nervous. They weren’t very frightening to behold—the men of Talya’s own crew looked far more intimidating—but the Northern Cardinal had told him of their nature. Every pirate sailing under the Black Snow’s colours bore a Blessing of their own. According to Talya, every last one of them had either possessed a Blessing before they’d ever met Freyr, or had been given one once they’d chosen to sail with him. It was a condition of sorts, all for the purpose of making their captain as strong as could be, of being a source of power for his Blessing of Command.

“Any Blessing he can take for his own,” Talya had told him in a voice of marvel. “He holds a wielder by the hand, and if he wills it, he can take their Blessing right out of their bodies and use it as his own.”

Rather than fill him with awe, Haeseon shuddered at the thought, the canary within him made anxious by it.

“Twenty-five Blessings aboard one ship,” Yeonshin said quietly from beside Jihan. He seemed every bit as tense as Haeseon, peering at the newcomers with suspicion. “Imagine the chaos.”

“It is impressive,” Daewon said. “To either find so many wielders or Blessings to give to those who would board his ship.”

Haeseon nodded, remembering what Talya had said about her son’s adventures. Freyr had not stayed in the north, according to her, but crossed over to the west more than once in search of Blessed Runes to collect for his crew. If what Talya had said was right, he had gone west without permission from Elyas Lowe, and the fact that he had managed that was impressive in and of itself.

It wasn’t long before Talya came skipping over to where the August’s crew were standing, dragging her son along with her as she went. She never stopped speaking, foreign words spilling from her lips at rapidfire succession, and her cheeks were flushed with joy so strong it all but radiated off her frame. Her exhilaration and glee made Haeseon smile, at least until she came to a halt in front of him and changed to the tongue of Joseon to proudly announce, “And this is Yun Haeseon, whose Blessings is that of the Canary.”

All of Haeseon’s prior nervousness came rushing back, along with the realisation of just how tall Freyr Sabelsson was. He towered over him, so much so that when he stood so close, Haeseon had to tilt his head back a little to be able to meet his eyes. When he did, he was overcome by a want to shudder; while the boy smiled down at him, his gaze was calculating rather than kind, as if he was attempting to see into Haeseon’s very soul.

“Haeseon, this is my son, Freyr Sabelsson,” Talya said and reached over to take Haeseon’s hand in her own. “I have told him much of you, and he has been very excited to meet you for many months now.” She looked between the two, beaming even in the face of the tension. “He is younger than you, so I hope you can see him as a little brother of your own.”

“Oh, I—yes,” Haeseon said and returned her smile as best he could before turning back to Freyr and bowing his head. “I’m certain we will get along well.”

If Talya noticed his nervousness, she did not show it in the slightest. “Wonderful!” she cried and clapped her hands together, smiling so wide her cheeks might’ve burst. “I must greet the others as well, but you two speak! Know each other better. Oh,” she looked at Haeseon, “do not worry about his understanding; he speaks your tongue better than I do. There is an eastern girl on his ship who has taught him well.”

Before Haeseon could do more than nod and part his lips to give a likely incoherent reply, she was off, bounding back towards the two crews and shouting in delight as she dove into their midst. In her wake, she left silence and a heaviness in the air, one that lodged itself in Haeseon’s throat and made it difficult to find the right words to speak. Freyr said nothing, only looked at him as if he was waiting, and Haeseon clasped his hands to stave off the urge to rub at his arms.

It took him embarrassingly long to find enough courage to clear his throat and speak. “Talya has told me—” he began, only to be immediately cut off.

“Why do you not meet my eyes, little bird?”

There was no malice to Freyr’s tone when he spoke. On the contrary, his voice was calm and almost soft, but it had a twinge of discomfort prickling at Haeseon’s spine. Little bird. It was a byname he heard often, if not by those who sailed aboard the August, then by those who knew him in Shanghai. It was a term of endearment, but from Freyr’s lips, it brought to mind the young hunters of his old home of Jeju, who had called him little bird to mock him.

He was quick to push the thought away and silently chided himself for thinking of Talya’s son as someone who would spite him upon their first meeting. Despite his nervousness, he made himself smile and looked up to meet Freyr’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said as kindly as he could. “Talya has told me so much about you and your voyages, it has made me a little nervous to meet a man like you. Even so, I am glad to meet you, Freyr.”

He leaned forward in a polite bow, a gesture the northerner did not return. Freyr remained standing straight, only peering down at him and smiling until he straightened his back once more. “You sing a pretty song,” he said, “at least that much is true.” With a melodic chuckle, he turned away from Haeseon without another word and addressed Jihan instead. “You must be Choi Jihan, the Black Fox of the East. It is an honour to meet you. You have my thanks for sailing so far for the sake of aiding my mother in this trying time.”

Much to Haeseon’s surprise, Freyr bowed low before the captain once he had finished speaking. What with his lack of movement upon Haeseon’s greeting, he had thought Frey was unaware of the customs of the east. It was clearly not the case, however, and so he looked at the northerner in bewilderment, wholly thrown off by his shifting manners.

The rest of the crew shared his confusion. While Seunggi stared at Freyr with his good eye narrowed in suspicion, Jun frowned as he leaned over to whisper something in Daewon’s ear, too quietly for Haeseon to hear. Yeonshin mirrored his bewilderment as he looked between Haeseon and Freyr, and at his side, Lucya’s gaze was cold as she studied the northerner from head to toe.

Out of all of them, Jihan’s reaction was the most clear. To the stranger, he might’ve simply looked stoic and assessing, but Haeseon needed only one look at him to know he was irritated. There was a hard tension to his jaw, and the crease at his brow was as clear sign as any that he had not taken kindly to Freyr’s behaviour. “An honour, you say,” he said slowly, his gaze flickering from the northerner to Haeseon and back. “Right.”

There was a bite to his voice, one that suggested he might’ve had more to say if they hadn’t been in the middle of the reunion they’d been preparing for for the past few days. He said nothing more, and he stood straight as well, only looking at Freyr as he righted himself.

Much to Haeseon’s relief, Qasim came looking for his son only a moment later, lips quirked into a smirk as he clapped a hand down on Freyr’s shoulder and said something to him in their common tongue. When he saw them side by side, Haeseon was reminded of what Qasim had told him on their way to the north. “That boy takes after me far more than he does his mother,” he had said, and Haeseon could see it now. Not only were they alike in looks, but the shape of their smiles were the same, as was the all but smug confidence with which they spoke.

“Did he tell you yet?” Qasim asked of Jihan, grinning when the captain replied with only a suspicious look. “Elyas Lowe has finally crossed over to the north. This snowflake of ours spied his ship heading for Greenland some days past.”

Jihan heaved a sigh at that. “Excellent,” he said dryly. “If there was one thing I was missing in this godforsaken place, it was Elyas Lowe and his incessant demands to be treated with more respect than you would treat a fucking insect.”

Qasim emitted a bark of laughter while his son only smiled. “He hates my captain and he hates you,” he said in a far too cheerful manner. “It is too perfect of a chance for him to pass. Of course he has come.” Without giving Jihan time to retort, he turned and gestured towards the two northern crews, who were beginning to move towards their encampment. “The feast will begin now. Pardon me for making off with the guest of honour.”

With that, he turned and pulled Freyr along with him. The boy went easily, without a word of farewell or even a glance their way before he followed after his father. The August’s crew stood unmoving as they left, every last one of them holding their silence until the two northerners were out of earshot, at which point they burst into a buzz of discontent.

“What the bloody hell was that?” Yeonshin asked and stared after the two.

“He seemed so… off when speaking with Haeseon,” Daewon said slowly, the ghost of a frown marring his brow. “He didn’t even introduce himself.”

“It’s alright,” Haeseon said in a brave attempt at pretending it was, indeed, alright. “He’s not from the east. He might not know our customs. Perhaps… perhaps he believes one only bows before the captain of a ship.”

His reasoning was half-hearted at best, a poor excuse for a man who, according to Talya, sailed with someone from the east as part of his crew. The others were hardly convinced; Jihan pressed his lips together and quirked a skeptical brow while Jun scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Right,” he said dryly. “He seems to take after his father first and foremost.”

“An arrogant brat,” Xiao grouched, huffing in a manner similar to that of his Blessing’s bear. “Thinks ‘cause he’s a cap’n as well he only has ta respect other cap’ns. He didn’ even look at the rest ‘a us.”

“He’s younger than Haesae,” Seunggi said with a frown etched deep in his brow. He made his way over to Haeseon and draped himself over his shoulders, glaring after Freyr and Qasim as if to expel the remnants of their conversation. “Why would he be so damn rude?”

In spite of the hint of discomfort in his chest, Haeseon shook his head and turned to face the others. “That’s enough,” he said firmly. “I’m certain he did not mean to be rude or to treat me with spite. We’ve only just met him. It’s too soon to judge him for who he is.”

None of them seemed eager to agree with him, their suspicion hardly abating in the face of his words. In their midst, Hisashi clicked his tongue and muttered something under his breath, but rather than pay him any heed, Daewon cleared his throat and nodded at Haeseon. “He’s right,” he said calmly. “This may not have been a good first impression, but it is only that, a first impression. We must wait and see before we can judge his true nature.”

Although far from content, the lot of them nodded and muttered their agreement. Once dismissed, they followed after the two northern crews, dragging their feet through the snow to the feast they were now far less excited for. Haeseon, Seunggi, and Jihan lingered, with the captain taking Haeseon’s hand in his and pressing his thumb against his palm. “Are you alright, songbird?” he asked, his frown still set in place over his brow. “Whether or not this was a matter of first impressions, he was still rude.”

A part of Haeseon wanted to agree, but he thought it better to simply smile and brush the whole conversation off as nothing to worry about. “I’m fine,” he said and squeezed Jihan’s hand. “Let’s hurry after the others. I’m sure it is warmer by the fire.”

The captain nodded slowly and Seunggi only huffed where he leaned against Haeseon’s frame, but neither of them protested, so Haeseon was content. With no further mention of Freyr’s odd behaviour, they trudged after the others to take their seats at the feast.

As soon as they’d sat down, however, Haeseon realised it wouldn’t be so easy to pretend the brief conversation with Freyr hadn’t happened. Although he was seated on the opposite side of the brazier from Talya and her son, he was unpleasantly aware of Freyr’s gaze flickering to rest on him every now and then. He ignored it as best he could, pretending he couldn’t feel it as he spoke with Seunggi or Yeonshin.

When Talya stood to make a toast and once again declared how dearly she wished Haeseon and her son might become close as brothers, a twinge of guilt rose to the back of Haeseon’s mind at the relief he felt for having sat so far away from them. In spite of what he had told himself and the rest of the crew, he couldn’t quite get rid of the discomfort gnawing at him every time he felt Freyr’s gaze return to him.

You’re being ridiculous, he thought sternly to himself. He’s young. He is allowed to make mistakes and not have you judge him for them.

Aside from Freyr’s odd behaviour, Jihan was strangely quiet as well. At first, Haeseon wondered if he was still angry, but the captain wasn’t tense in the way he always was when he was irritated. He seemed lost in thought, his movements slower than usual and his gaze somehow distant as he stared into his cup of mead. When Haeseon asked him what was wrong, he only shook his head and told him not to worry, and while all it did was make Haeseon worry even more, he knew Jihan would not speak of it here.

The feast had carried on for several hours when the captain stood from the table and excused himself, lingering only for long enough to tell Daewon he wanted some peace and quiet. To Haeseon, he sent a smile that was surely meant to be reassuring, but it was stiff and so far from the one he usually wore, it only did the opposite.

“Is he alright?” Haeseon asked of Seunggi, who had watched his brother leave with the same air of worry.

“I don’t know,” the quartermaster said quietly. He shot a pointed look at Talya and Freyr, who were chattering animatedly at the heart of the feast, as if it was all their fault Jihan had suddenly taken his leave. “I think… I think he is sad. He’s sad, and he doesn’t want anyone to see.”

The worry simmering in Haeseon’s chest grew stronger and he fidgeted where he sat, rubbing at the heavy layers of furs and wool around his arm. The captain had seemed off for days now, ever since they had united with Talya, but Haeseon had never thought to consider it was sorrow he was feeling. “Why is he sad?” he asked in a whisper. “Why would he be… why?”

Seunggi pulled his lip between his teeth, frowning behind his mask. He didn’t immediately answer, only worrying his lip until it cracked with the cold and made him wince. “Come,” he finally murmured and took Haeseon’s hand to pull him out of his seat. Without another word, he led them the same way Jihan had gone, uncaring of the dozens of eyes that followed them as they left.

He said nothing while they walked, and his silence had Haeseon’s anxiousness growing. He had never known Jihan to be easily saddened, least of all in such a quiet manner. When he did not have to wear the mask of the Eastern Cardinal, the captain’s emotions were open and easy to see, whether he was angry or glad. He wore his mask now, Haeseon knew; friend or no, Jihan did not know Talya or her son’s crew. They were not part of the family he had made, and so he wore his stoic facade and showed them as little of his true self as he could.

And if he has to excuse himself because he is sad, Haeseon thought, fretting, his sorrow must be too great for him to hide.

They found him crouched by the shore, picking stones from the frozen ground and tossing them into the sea. He was deep in thought, as much was plain to see by the way he hardly paid any heed to where he chucked the pebbles, the first one flying some ways to the left while the other hit the layer of ice that had formed over the water where it hit the shore.

Wrapped as he was in his layers of furs, he looked like an animal of sorts, lost and smaller than Haeseon had ever seen him. It made him ache, to see his beloved this way, and even without knowing what it was that plagued him, Haeseon wished he could take it all away with only a wave of his hand.

Seunggi went to him first. He tugged Haeseon with him halfway before letting him go and walking over to his brother alone. His silence carried still, even as he took a seat by Jihan’s side and carefully leaned against him. Jihan responded in kind, uttering naught but a sigh as he rested his head on top of Seunggi’s.

Quietly, so as to not disturb the silent understanding the brothers shared, Haeseon went to the captain’s other side and sat down on the frozen ground. He looked at Jihan and Jihan looked at him, if only for a moment before he closed his eyes. It made him look calmer than he likely was; Haeseon had always thought the captain looked younger and more serene when he slept, momentarily freed from all his burdens.

He let the silence carry for as long as he could bear before finally parting his lips. “Are you alright, Jihan?” he asked as quietly as he knew how.

The captain did not answer for a long while, so long Haeseon began to wonder if he had fallen asleep against his brother. When he did speak, his voice was low and hoarse, and far from calm. “No,” he said, “but I will be. Eventually.”

From his words alone, Haeseon knew he was attempting to brush past whatever it was that plagued him, as if it was something for him alone to worry over. He spoke as if it was something he knew he would overcome on his own sooner or later. Jihan thought of it the way he thought of everything else; as something for him to face with no one at his side.

In an attempt to quell his anxiousness, Haeseon took the captain’s prosthetic hand in his own and stroked its knuckles even though he knew Jihan would not feel it. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he said, “but if you do want to, I will listen. I don’t know if I can help, but… I will try.”

The captain sighed, not in impatience, but in a manner that conveyed just how tired he was just then. For a long time, he said nothing. His eyes remained shut and he did not raise his head from Seunggi’s, as if he was relying on his brother to bear some of the weight that so heavily held him down. The quartermaster sat like him, quiet and unmoving, only holding onto his brother as if he was all that mattered then.

When Jihan finally spoke, he sounded as if he had aged three decades. “Over the past few days, Sabelsdottír has been speaking without pause about home,” he said slowly. “How many times has she said that her son is coming home? And now that he has, how many times has she said that he’s finally home again? I…” He pressed his lips together for a moment, chewing on the words he did not want to speak. “With all this talk of home, I’ve been reminded of my mother and father.”

“Oh,” was all Haeseon knew to say. It was not what he had expected to hear, and it left him even more at loss for how he could take away the captain’s sorrow. “You’ve never spoken about them,” he said quietly.

Jihan huffed out a joyless chuckle. “For good reason,” he said in an attempt at sounding as if he did not care. He must’ve realised his failure, for he fell into another bout of silence before raising his voice again. “It is not something I like to think about,” he muttered. “I didn’t see them much in my adolescence. Serving the king’s sailors took me away from my home at the age of ten, and I only saw them a handful of times after that.”

By his other side, Seunggi pressed closer against him and held onto his arm, still quiet as he listened to the tale he likely already knew. “My mother… she was sad to see me go,” Jihan said and shuddered. Whether it was from the cold or from the words he spoke, Haeseon could not tell. “Still, both she and my father were proud as they could be. They were simple farmers, you see, and considered it a great honour to have their only son in high position within the rank of the king’s sailors.”

Haeseon looked up from Jihan’s hand and found the captain staring out over the bay, a distant haze to his eyes. “I was fifteen years old when I last saw them,” he murmured. “They both still live.” He paused for a moment. “At least I like to think they do. They’re not very old. My mother will be thirty seven years old this spring.”

Uncertain whether or not he should ask, Haeseon gave Jihan’s prosthetic hand a squeeze and pushed past his hesitation. He needed to know. “Why have you not gone back to see them?” he asked.

As if he had felt Haeseon’s touch, the captain turned his hand and returned his grip. He closed his eyes again, as if to brace himself for what was to come. “Because they were proud of me,” he said. “They were so proud of the boy I was and the man I was becoming and I…” He struggled for a moment to find the right words, his lips parting and closing around nothing but the mist of his breath. “I took it away from them,” he said hoarsely. “I betrayed them every bit as much as I betrayed the law. Their pride and their love and their respect, I took it all and crushed it beneath the heel of my shoes.”

When he looked at Haeseon, his eyes were red and glistening. “How could I face them again, songbird?” he asked. His voice broke, and Haeseon felt it as if it had been his heart that had cracked. “How could I stand before them after all that I’ve done?”

Haeseon moved before he knew what to say, until he was kneeling in front of his beloved. He held Jihan’s hand in one of his own and reached out with the other to press it against his cheek. “You’re their son, Jihan,” he said, although he spoke in a pleading manner rather than in a tone that was convincing. “If they knew why you did what you did then, they would understand. I know they would.”

Jihan shook his head as best he could without pulling away from Haeseon’s touch. “I don’t know what I would do if they looked at me with disgust,” he whispered. “If—if I saw them again and they were afraid of me. They’re my parents, my mother and father, the ones that brought me into this world and raised me to be who I am, a-and if they were afraid of me, I—” His voice gave in again, and Haeseon felt the warmth of his tears fall against his hand. “I can’t bear the thought, songbird,” the captain croaked. “I can’t.”

Haeseon pulled him into his arms, the whole of his being aching with the need to chase away Jihan’s sorrow. He wished so desperately to know the words that could make it better, that could convince his beloved that reality was not so cruel as he feared it was. He wanted it more than anything. Without it, all he could do was hold Jihan against his chest and hide his anguish from the world, if only for a moment.

They sat in silence for a long while. All around them, the north was quiet in its frozen shoreline and falling snow, as if the earth itself chose to grant them the peace they needed for this moment and this moment alone. Haeseon held him tightly and stroked along his back, until he felt some of the captain’s tension begin to ease beneath all of his furs.

When Jihan moved to sit upright, Haeseon was reluctant to let him go. He leaned forward to have a proper look at the captain’s face, the red of his cheeks casting a heavy contrast to his pale skin. Jihan did not cry, but his eyes remained red-rimmed and narrow, as if he was on the constant verge. Still struggling for the right words to speak, Haeseon parted his lips and closed them again before thinking of the one thing he knew the captain could rely on for comfort. “Do the others know?” he asked.

Jihan gave a sharp exhale, as if attempting to dispel the thickness that would undoubtedly cling to his voice. “Seunggi knows,” he said and placed his free hand on the quartermaster’s thigh. “I’ve only ever told Gi, but it is likely Kyujang and Yeonshin know as well.” He looked at his brother. “I wouldn’t it put it past you to tell the two of them as well.”

“He wouldn’t have,” Haeseon said at the same time as Seunggi said, “I did.”

“I knew it.” Forced as it was, Jihan smiled when the quartermaster cast down his gaze. “I doesn’t make me angry, Gi,” he said with as much softness as he could muster. “I know you would only ever tell someone if it was for the sake of helping me. I can’t be angry with you for that.”

Without meeting his gaze, Seunggi clung to his brother’s arm and nodded against his shoulder. “Good,” he murmured and closed his eyes when Jihan lay his head against his.

For a moment longer, Haeseon thought of what he could do to help his beloved. He could think of nothing; he had grieved plenty over the dead in his life, but never over the living. Finally, he gave up on attempting to find the answer on his own and instead asked the one who knew their own heart best. “Is there anything I can do to make it easier?” he murmured.

The smile Jihan offered him was tired. “No,” he said quietly. “You’re sweet for wanting to help, but…” He shook his head. “I do not know how to make this right, songbird. I don’t even know what I would do, so there is nothing I know to ask from you.”

Kind as they were, his words did little to quell the anxious need in Haeseon’s chest. There had to be something, he knew it. Anything at all that he could say to take away Jihan’s sadness, if only for the day. If only for the moment they shared now. He thought long and hard, until he decided that if he couldn’t make the past hurt less than it did, he could at least reassure Jihan of the future. “If you ever did want to see them again,” he said gently, “you know we would go with you, Jihan. You wouldn’t have to do it alone.”

Jihan sighed, with the same tiredness that framed his grimace of a smile. “Songbird…” he began, but Haeseon shook his head and continued before he could protest.

“And if your mother and father were uncertain about the man you are today,” he said firmly, “we would tell them everything. We would tell them of all the wonderful things you’ve done. Seunggi would tell them of the people you’ve saved. Yeonshin would tell them of how you protect those around you with every ounce of strength you have to give. All of us, we would tell them how much you matter to those who are treated unfairly by this world.”

When Jihan lowered his face, Haeseon cupped his cheeks and made him look up again, smiling as he met his eyes. “And I would tell them you make me love you so much my heart might burst at any moment simply by being the man you are,” he said. “The man they raised you to be.”

It came slowly, but the way in which the captain’s lips curled up into a small yet genuine smile filled Haeseon with relief so immense his legs might’ve folded had he not already been kneeling. “Thank you, songbird,” he said and raised his hand to pull Haeseon into an embrace, his other curling around Seunggi. “Thank you.”

“I’ve told you a hundred times already,” Haeseon said and pressed his lips against the captain’s temple, “there is nothing you have to thank me for.”

“And I’ve told you—”

“Gods, not this again,” Seunggi complained from where his face was buried against Jihan’s shoulder. “You two do know you have this argument every other day, don’t you?” His voice bore no actual annoyance, only petulant teasing, and when he looked up at them, he was smiling as well. “Don’t be sad, Jihan.”

“Yes,” Haeseon said before the captain had the chance to reply. He pulled the furs tighter around Jihan’s neck where they had come loose. “And don’t go cold in times of sorrow. It makes it all seem worse than it already is.”

Jihan was wholly unimpressed. “I believe I told you that first,” he said and quirked a challenging brow.

“You did,” Haeseon conceded easily, “but it was a good thing to say, so now I’m saying it to you.” Mature as he was, he stuck out his tongue at the captain and felt his heart swell when Jihan laughed at the petulant gesture. He brushed his thumb over the skin of the captain’s cheek, his smile turning into something softer when Jihan met his eyes. “I don’t like to see you sad,” Haeseon murmured.

“I know, songbird,” the captain said. “I don’t like to be sad, either. I only… sometimes the sadness is hard to keep away.”

Haeseon nodded. “When that happens, we will help you send it off again,” he said. This time, his voice was firmer and far more convincing. “Seunggi and I, or Yeonshin, or Kyujang, when he returns. We will help you until you know what you want to do about it.”

The sigh Jihan emitted now was one of content. “I love you, songbird,” he said and turned his head to place a kiss against the palm of Haeseon’s hand. “And I love you too, Gi.”

“Not in the same way, I hope,” Seunggi said and grinned when Jihan rolled his eyes with a snort. It turned into laughter when Haeseon shoved at his shoulder, and whether it was the sound or the playfulness, it made the captain chuckle and smile so wide the pink of his gums showed. It was Haeseon’s favourite smile of his, because he knew it meant Jihan was at peace.

They remained sitting on the shore for a while longer to enjoy the silence before deeming it best to return to the feast lest someone come looking for them. They spoke of Hel and Elyas Lowe as they walked, with Seunggi recalling the way in which Jihan had coldly dismissed the Western Cardinal when they’d first met, and how frail Lowe’s ego must be to harbor a hatred for him for such a small slight.

“There you two are!”

As soon as they had made their way back to the encampment, Talya came prancing to greet them, a delighted spring in her step. In the heart of the feast, Freyr looked at them in silence, the smile on his lips crooked. “The time has come to set sail,” Talya told them. She could barely contain her glee, clapping her hands together at the prospect of returning to the sea. “I have sent Qasim to call a meeting between us and my friend in the west. We will meet him in a week’s time, on the northern coast of the Faroe Islands.”

“Is this the same friend who has been keeping watch over Elyas Lowe?” Jihan asked.

Talya nodded and beckoned them to follow her back to the heart of the camp. “It is, yes.”

“Who are they?” Haeseon asked, smiling at her excitement. “Another one of your northerners?”

“Oh,” Talya uttered with a snort and waved her hand around, “absolutely not. His name is Iric Ried, although not many people know it. To the sea, he is known as the Righteous Flame. The people of the north and west thought it was easier to remember.” She shook her head. “Odd.”

Jihan scoffed, brows knitting into a skeptical frown. “The Righteous Flame,” he echoed in a voice dripping with irony. “Quite an interesting name for a pirate.”

Much to their surprise, Talya came to a halt in the snow and began to laugh. “A pirate?” she cackled, as if it was the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. “Oh gods, never let him know you thought he was one. He will have you hanged on the spot!” Still chortling, she reached up to wipe tears from her cheeks, flushed from both the cold and her amusement. “Iric is no pirate, Jihan,” she said breathlessly, “but an admiral of the Queen’s Sailors of the West and North.”

Both Haeseon and Jihan came to an immediate halt, the two of them growing rigid as if they’d been turned to ice by the northern cold. “He is a what?” Haeseon exclaimed when he found his voice, shrill as it was. He felt Jihan’s tension as if it was his own, memories of Son Jukan and faceless men screaming in the agony of death coming unbidden to his mind.

“A man of the law and justice,” Talya said easily and laughed again, this time at the reaction she had caused. “A hero to the common folk and a champion to those who sail under a peaceful flag. A man of morals, and one of my dearest, most trusted friends.” When neither Jihan nor Haeseon lost any of their tension at that, she reached out and clapped them both on the shoulder, cheerful as one could be. “Do not look so afraid, friends,” she said, grinning from ear to ear. “Iric may have the whole of Yggdrasill pushed far up his arse, but he is a good man. A good man that we need to help us win this battle against Elyas Lowe.”

-

wELL

THAT’S INTERESTING

also jihan :( the world is too cruel for him omg haeseon you better give him the good hugs :( ngl i started crying halfway through writing that scene, heck, this is just such a… such a familiar fear, you know? a crippling fear of seeing nothing but disappointment in your parents’ eyes, shet, that hit me right in the damn chest, hhhhhhoo boi

i'm sad again :(

protecc jihan 2k18

aLSO

highkey wanted to smack freyr's stupid head every time i had him looking haeseon's way >:T i mean only time will tell what he's like bUT BOI HE DID NOT LEAVE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION ON ANY OF THEM, LEAST OF ALL ME, NO SIR YOU LEAVE MY SONGBIRD ALONE

(yes i'm yelling at my own character that i created and made into this aNNOYING GUY UGH)

NEXT WEEK OH LORD NEXT WEEK WE GON' MEET AN ADMIRAL OF THE QUEEN'S SAILORS HOO BOI YOU BET YOUR ASS HE AND JIHAN ARE GONNA GET ALONG LIKE A MOTH AND A FLAME AYYYYYY—


	10. chapter 9 - The Law and its Breakers

i love talya and i love haeseon and i love jihan and i lovE EVERYONE except freyr aND THAT'S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW FOR THIS CHAPTER AHH—

-

Three days at sea brought the crews to the southernmost of the Faroe Islands, where they would meet Talya’s supposed friend, the admiral of the queen’s sailors. The island stood barren as far as Haeseon could see from the bay, with not a house in sight, only snowy hills and frost-rimmed trees, and the harsh, harsh cold. They had sailed along the coast for the better half of a day, and the last sign of civilisation they had seen was a small, lone house at the shore seven hours earlier.

Haeseon hadn’t needed to ask why Talya had chosen such a desolate place to meet the admiral. Upon seeing it, it was obvious; a man of the law could hardly afford to be seen speaking with a band of pirates, least of all in a friendly manner. The Righteous Flame, he was called, the hope of the people. No doubt his name and the safety his reputation brought with it would flicker and die should the people learn of his meddling with outlaws such as Talya.

“I don't see him,” Haeseon said when they had landed and the crews had stepped ashore. It was bitingly cold and windy to boot, the snow cracking and crunching beneath his shoes. “I don't see anyone.”

“He wouldn't come so far,” Talya said much too brightly. “He sailed his ship to the other side of this island so his crew wouldn't know what he will do. We will meet at the midpoint”

“And you're certain he will come alone?” Jihan asked. His voice was as stiff as the rest of him, a tension that had plagued him ever since hearing of who they were to meet. It was shared by the rest of his crew, the lot of them discontent. “He will come alone to face three pirate captains, two of whom are Cardinals?”

“Yes,” she said. “I trust him to come alone, and he trusts me to ensure his safe passage. At the end of this meeting, we will leave in peace, and no harm will have come to him.” There was a warning hidden somewhere deep within her cheerful words, one that had both Qasim and Freyr smiling their identical smiles.

“But why would he come peacefully to meet us?” Haeseon asked. He was every bit as restless as Jihan, nervousness simmering beneath his skin. “He is a sailor and we are pirates. His creed’s goal is to have us all eradicated.”

Talya turned to him and took his hands in hers, her smile both patient and endeared. “Before we are pirates or sailors, darling Haeseon, we are people,” she said gently. “We are human. I know many people hold onto their creed as hard as they can, because without it, they don’t know themselves. They can’t let it go, so they let it make them blind to what we are all at heart.” She walked backwards and tugged him along, as if leading him in a dance. “Some, like Iric Ried, can see clearly,” she said. “He does not like pirates, but he can put aside his creed and his duty for long enough to be human with us, who are human as well.”

Haeseon did not know what to say to that. All of a sudden, he felt very small in the presence of the Northern Cardinal, and all he could do was stare at her, eyes wide with awe at her thoughts. A little “Oh,” was all that made it past his lips, a meek sound that made her smile grow back to its usual shape, all sharp teeth and laughter.

“I think you made the little bird lose his voice,” Freyr said with a snort. He did not look at Haeseon, his gaze set on his smiling mother as if he did not notice the attention he had drawn upon himself from the August’s crew. Behind Haeseon, Seunggi whispered something under his breath, his harsh words lost to the whistle of the wind. “You have to be more careful with your words, Talya.”

There was a slyness to his tone that Haeseon did his best to ignore. Instead, he made himself smile while Talya laughed at her son’s jest and let go of her hands to tuck them tightly against his own body. “It is so cold here,” he said in an attempt to distract both himself and Jihan, who was staring at Freyr with an expression of irritated disbelief. Before the captain could work himself up enough to raise his voice, Haeseon took his hand and pulled him against his side. “It’s fine,” he whispered. “He was only fooling around.”

Jihan was far from convinced, but he held his tongue and nodded all the same. “Let’s go,” he said gruffly, “before we freeze our fucking balls off.”

The trek to where Talya had said they would meet was not very long. Having pulled into a bay that cut halfway into the island’s width, it took them only some three hours of walking before they reached the midway point. Much to Haeseon’s surprise, a cluster of houses rose from the snow, run-down and empty, as if no one had lived there for years and years.

“Thirty years ago, this was a peaceful, quaint little village,” Qasim said upon noticing Haeseon’s curiosity. “The whole of this island was inhabited and lively, what with its convenient location so close to the mainland. But then,” he chortled, “a pirate captain and her crew came to raid it and drove the people from their homes, and laid in waiting for unsuspecting trading vessels to pass by. She pillaged some twenty ships before they had the sense to reroute.”

“A pirate captain,” Haeseon echoed and glanced at Talya, who chortled.

“Not me,” she said and waved a hand around as if to smack away the assumption. “I was barely old enough to walk at the time. No, it was my mother. Ragna Sabelsdottír.” She gestured to the village ahead. “Even so long after her death, no one has dared return to this island. Cursed, they call it. They say ghosts walk these lands, restless spirits left by those who died by the Pale Tiger’s teeth.”

While Seunggi emitted a low sound of marvel, Haeseon shuddered at the prospect of the dead haunting the lands on which they walked. It was easy enough to mask the tremor as being due to the cold, although he was uncomfortably aware of a pair of eyes resting heavily against the side of his face. He did not have to look up to know who it was; while Freyr avoided his gaze whenever Haeseon sought his, the boy would stare at him when he thought Haeseon did not notice.

“We will meet Iric in the old town hall,” Talya said and pointed to the largest of the buildings. “He is already here, I think.”

“How can you tell?” Yeonshin asked through clattering teeth.

Talya turned to him with a lopsided smile. “Because he is grossly well-mannered and would never in all his life be late.”

Haeseon held tightly onto Jihan’s arm as they crossed over the edge of the abandoned village. It was not only the frightening story that made him so nervous—although they certainly did no favours to help him be calm—but the thought of coming face to face with one of the law’s sailors. The only one he had ever known was Son Jukan, and even if this Iric Ried bore only a fraction of similarities to him, Haeseon knew he would despise him until the day he died.

“Calm,” he whispered, both for his own sake and for Jihan’s. “It will be alright.”

By his side, the captain said nothing, but his silence spoke volumes.

When they reached the old town hall, Talya went first, pushing open the battered wooden doors to let both the wind and daylight into the battered building. “We’ve arrived,” she sing-songed and beckoned the rest of them as she waltzed her way over the threshold. Qasim and Freyr and their crews went without waiting, and only once the lot of them had stepped inside did Jihan give a jerky nod and moved to follow.

The town hall was barely big enough to fit the three crews comfortably. They huddled together near the walls, glad to be out of the wind, however lousy of a shelter it was with the cracked walls and bent, empty window frames. Haeseon let go of Jihan as they made their way to the front of the crews, thinking it best the Eastern Cardinal appear as harsh as he believed it necessary in the presence of who was undoubtedly their enemy.

A man stood at the other end of the room, so still Haeseon might’ve mistaken him for a statue had his uniform not stood out so blatantly in contrast to the messiness of the hall. There was not a speck of dust on his blue-and-white clothes, nor on the furs he wore over them, and as he turned to face the newcomers, it was as if the dirt on the floor crawled away from the reach of his boots, fearing leaving a stain on his pristine garb.

Haeseon’s first thought was how startlingly similar the man was to Jihan. Not in appearances—this man stood a head and a half taller than Jihan, with flaming auburn hair and narrow shoulders—but in the way they both carried themselves and in the way the air around them quivered with their tension. The way they stood was the same, square-shouldered and ramrod straight; even the harsh, stony expression they bore was a mirror image of one another.

Sailors, Haeseon thought and glanced at Jihan, whose hard gaze was set firmly on the admiral’s form. One past, one present.

“You’re early, as you always are,” Talya said as cheerfully as ever. “I hope you have not waited long, Iric.”

Her words went ignored in the suffocating tension in the hall. Jihan stood rigid as a statue at the head of his crew, hands clasped tightly behind his back. The red embroidery of the robes he wore beneath Talya’s furs was like blood over his chest, as if drawn by the sword at the sailor’s hip, gripped so tightly his knuckles grew white. There was loathing written all over the captain’s face, in his scowl and the clench of his jaw; even the muscles of his neck stood out beneath the line of furs.

When the admiral broke out of his state of stiffness and walked towards Jihan, the nervousness in Haeseon’s chest lurched. His hands trembled and he gripped Seunggi’s arm, feeling his Blessing’s feathers threaten to burst out of his skin out of the sheer force of his premonition. Don’t hurt him, he wanted to say, a shrill cry brimming in his throat. Don’t hurt him, or I will hurt you in return.

The sailor's boots clacked together when he came to a halt. For a moment, he only looked at Jihan, neither of them moving a muscle. It was as if a lynx had happened upon a fox; before his eyes, Haeseon could imagine the bristled fur and snarling, and the utter refusal to show fear in the face of the intruding predator. Both could kill the other, but neither would be the first to lash out.

When the admiral finally spoke, his voice was deep and firm, and every bit as stiff as the rest of him. “I am Iric Ried, Admiral of the Queen’s Sailors of the West and North,” he said. “I did not expect to meet someone such as you under these conditions, but Sabelsdottír ensures me your presence is vital for the sake of preserving the balance that has reigned for the past two generations. I know who you are and what you have done, and I can’t call it an honour to meet you, Cardinal Choi Jihan, but I offer you my gratitude for the role you have chosen to play.”

Iric Ried radiated the same pride all sailors bore, but upon his greeting, he bowed his head before the pirate captain all the same. Haeseon stared at him, unbreathing, while the canary fidgeted with anxiousness within his chest. Even in submission, the admiral was stiff with tension, as if he refused to shed the readiness to act should he need to.

Jihan went without speaking for so long, Haeseon began to fret he wouldn’t, stubborn as he was in his hatred for the law’s men. When he finally did reply, his voice was rough as stone. “Admiral Iric Ried,” he said and mirrored the sailor’s bow, his reluctance obvious. It was as if a statue was being forced to bend out of shape. “I have come only on the good faith of Sabelsdottír so that we may discuss what is happening in the North, not to receive your gratitude. Speak quickly, or leave. Make one wrong move, and the last thing you will see is the arrow my crewman will bury in your throat.”

The mariner’s jaw tightened in reproach, but he did not rise to the bait, even upon the sight of the crossbow held firmly in Lucya's hands. “I have not come to trade warnings or threats,” he said. “Sabelsdottír called me here to discuss the actions due to be taken in regards to Cardinal Elyas Lowe's crossing to the North.”

“And as my guest, you sure are being rude,” Talya said with a huff of feigned offense. “You haven't even greeted me yet. It is as if you only have eyes for the Black Fox.” She sighed and broke away from her crew to walk up to the admiral, the smile returning to her lips when she reached out to nudge him in the side. “You have missed me, Iric, admit it.”

“I have done no such thing,” the sailor said without as much as a glance her way. “Peace is what I've known in your absence, Sabelsdottír.”

“And how boring it must've been.” Talya shook her head and nudged the admiral a little harder. “I see Yggdrasill still grows strong,” she quipped.

While Qasim snorted in amusement, Haeseon's nervousness grew tenfold. Friends, Talya had called herself and Iric Ried, but there was not an ounce of warmth or fondness anywhere in the admiral's words or gaze. On the contrary, he looked ready to draw the sword at his side at any moment and pierce her with it.

“If you have no intention of speaking of Elyas Lowe,” he said very stiffly, “I will return to my ship and sail it back to the West immediately.”

“You can hide it however much you want, Iric, I know you're happy to see me,” Talya said and clapped him on the shoulder. “But as you wish. Let us discuss the cause of this reunion.”

The admiral parted his lips and closed them again to chew on harsh words no doubt aimed at Talya, his jaw moving in the same way Jihan's always did when he knew it would do no good to voice his thoughts. “Ever since crossing, Lowe has remained close to the borders of the West and North,” he said instead. “He is being careful to not venture too deep into waters where he is not welcome. He has made no efforts to hide his presence, but he is also loathe to cross paths with any of your northerners.”

“Elyas Lowe is a coward,” Jihan said. He had yet to turn his gaze away from the admiral, expecting a sign of betrayal at any moment. “He would never seek out Talya or any one of her northerners as long as she is stronger than him. He will wait for Hel to cripple her, and only then come to claim his victory.”

“He loves his title too much,” Freyr said with a soft titter. “The Pirate Prince. He has grown so loathe to lost it that he is no longer the same pirate who first earned that name. When his power began to grow, so did his fear of losing it. Now, he runs his rings of trade and smuggle, and bathes in his riches all the while running from sailors and pirates alike.”

“Which is why I have called Iric to the North,” Talya said, grinning while the admiral looked mortally offended at the thought of having been summoned anywhere by a pirate. “Lowe will run at the sight of white sails, so you and your sailors can herd him deeper into the North until he will have no choice but to face us.”

For the first time, Iric’s facade crumbled. He heaved a frustrated sigh and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “You would have me play the shepherd,” he said and pinned Talya under a murderous glare. “To sail in circles around him until the only way he can go is towards Iceland, where you will wait for him with your northern army.”

“No army,” she said and jerked her head towards the three crews. “Only us. We are more than enough, and far more than he deserves.”

“Only you, then,” the admiral conceded, his ire flaring. “Do you imagine this is something I can accomplish with naught but my own warship? I will have to call on at least five more vessels to lay enough pressure on Lowe to make him turn the way we want him to.”

“So summon five more warships,” Talya said, as if it was the simplest answer in all the world. “You’re an admiral, Iric. You have the command to do so.”

“It is not a matter of command,” he shot back. “Admiral or not, I will have to provide my superiors with a report for why I summon five warships to the North with no intention of actually being the one to put an end to Elyas Lowe’s reign.”

It was Talya’s turn to sigh, although hers was one of impatience rather than ire. “Don’t tell them that,” she said and rolled her eyes. “Tell them you aim to capture Elyas Lowe, but that I was faster.”

“And when they ask me why I did not capture you instead?”

The Northern Cardinal emitted a bark of laughter. “Strong as you are, bright Righteous Flame,” she chortled, “I can’t imagine they would expect such a feat from you. They would likely commend you for escaping with your life.”

Iric Ried looked properly snubbed by that. He pressed his lips together and curled them down, but said nothing in terms of rebuke. Had Haeseon not been so perplexed by their bickering and the whole of their argument, he might’ve found the admiral’s reaction humorous. Instead, he stared at Iric, waiting, expecting the refusal that never came.

“Have it your way, then,” the admiral said when he had regained enough of his composure to reassume his stony facade. “I will call upon a handful of warships to assist me. In return, you had better make sure none of your northerners come bearing down on us for as long as this quest may last.”

“Of course,” Talya said, as if it was an easy task to convince every pirate crew in the north to not attack a convoy flying the law’s colours. “They will not stand in the way of Lowe’s ill fate.”

“The West will have to choose a new Cardinal,” Iric said with no small amount of reproach to his voice. “Unrest will grow as all the sea’s pirates attempt to prove themselves worthy to take the Western title for their own.”

There was a sour taste burning in the back of Haeseon’s throat, one he couldn’t swallow however hard he tried. Part of him knew the decision they had made was good, one that would certainly help them in the battle against Lowe, but the part of him that despised men like Son Jukan and the hypocrisy with which they served the law was stronger. It had him listening to the bickering between Iric and Talya with a sense of growing discontent, until he could no longer bite his tongue.

“What of the law?” he asked, his voice far more shrill than intended. Every face in the hall turned to him and made him want to hide, but he persisted, gripping hard onto Seunggi’s arm and meeting the admiral’s hard gaze. “You would willingly guide Elyas Lowe to his death instead of apprehending him to be tried for his crimes by a judge of the law?”

Jihan’s eyes were heavy against the side of his face, as was Freyr’s, and Hisashi’s. He could all but feel the swordsman’s incredulity as if it was a physical being clawing at his back, but he did not look away from Iric or falter, no matter how much he wanted to slip behind his friend and pretend he’d said nothing at all.

An eternity might’ve had time to pass before the admiral finally spoke. “You are Yun Haeseon,” he said, the ghost of a frown marring his brow. Beside him, Talya was smiling, lips spread wide with both amusement and pride. “The Ocean’s Harpy.”

The chill of his voice made the urge to hide that much stronger. It brought to Haeseon’s mind the distant scream of the sailor whose death had given him his title, and had his hands not been holding so tightly onto Seunggi, he might’ve clawed at the skin of his arms until they bled. He was so lost in his anxiousness, he did not notice when Jihan moved to his side until the captain placed a hand on the small of his back.

When Iric resumed speaking, he said nothing more of who Haeseon was. “Yes, I will do it,” he said firmly. “The law is what it is, and its expectations cannot always be fulfilled.”

Haeseon’s disbelief mounted at that, shocked to hear an admiral of the law say such a thing. “But—”

“If I was to abide by the law at every last instance, this meeting would not take place,” Iric went on. “I would not offer my assistance and I would’ve lain a trap to apprehend the lot of you. You would be my enemy and,” for the second time, his facade crumbled, this time to give way for an expression as if he had bitten into something sour, “Sabelsdottír would not be my friend.”

Talya’s delighted laughter shattered the tension in the hall and drew the others’ attention away from Haeseon, who released a quivering exhale, every nerve of him still strung taut. “What is the point of a law,” he whispered, his voice so thin it was easily drowned out by Talya’s teasing, “if its preachers only use it to hide their true intentions?”

“The law is wrong, Haesae,” Seunggi murmured and covered his hands with his own. “That is why we’ve abandoned it. You know this.”

Haeseon closed his eyes and nodded, allowing the quartermaster’s words and Jihan’s touch to help him settle. He did know it. He knew what the law was and he knew how the law’s own men used it, but it was a bitter reminder all the same. “I know,” he said and drew a steadying breath. “It doesn’t make it any easier.”

He offered Jihan as reassuring of a smile as he could before turning back to the two bickering in the middle of the hall. “I knew you cared for me, Iric,” Talya was saying, her voice overly sweet. “There is no need to hide it.”

“That is not what I said,” the admiral retorted loudly, seeming just about ready to draw his sword. “That is not at all what I said.” When Talya made a show of pretending not to hear his protests, he heaved another sigh and ran a hand through his hair, tugging sharply at the red locks before choosing to ignore her and raising a new topic. “What of Hel?” he asked of no one in particular. “She has taken up residence in the mountains of Svalbard. Why, God only knows, but she must be—”

“She has what?” Talya’s glee was gone in an instant, replaced by wide-eyed shock. “You know where she is?” she asked.

Her surprise in turn surprised Iric, who quirked a brow at her. “Did you not?” he asked, as if her lack of knowledge was hard to believe. “You once made a spectacle of telling me your northerners bring you news wherever you are on the sea.”

“I haven’t been on the sea much ever since she came,” Talya said, uncaring of the dry irony to his voice. She descended into a thoughtful silence, only muttering “Svalbard,” under her breath over and over again.

“What is she doing there?” Jihan asked of the admiral. “Is she not supposed to be looking for Sabelsdottír? Why would she sail so far north?”

“I do not know,” Iric said. He looked far from pleased by his own statement, as if it angered him that he did not know. “There has been no reports of unrest from the townsfolk, but she was seen journeying to the Austfonna glacier with her band of followers nearly a fortnight past. There are three dozen of them at least.” His frown deepened still. “The ship she sailed vanished from the bay where she landed soon after her arrival, but no one has seen it leave Svalbard’s shores. She must still be there.”

Jihan parted his lips to ask something more, but Talya spoke before him, breaking out of her daze with a smile slowly spreading her lips. “If she is still there,” she said, “should we not go to meet her?”

Haeseon’s eyes grew wide in shock at the suggestion. “Talya, what are you—”

“It is better than waiting for her to come for me,” she said, as if she hadn’t heard Haeseon’s voice at all. “If we go to her, we will be the ones to decide the terms of the battle that can’t be avoided. We can surprise her and defeat her before she ever comes to kill me and mine.” She turned to face the three crews. “We know why she has come. If we are to meet her in battle, why wait for her to come for us?”

“It could be a trap,” Daewon said, although he sounded far from convinced by his own words.

“A trap laid out when Hel has no reason to believe we knew where she is?” Freyr countered with a sardonic smile. “It doesn’t seem very likely.”

“However it is, you are making a rash decision, Sabelsdottír,” Iric said with a warning glare Freyr’s way. “It could be dangerous.”

“Of course it will be dangerous,” Talya said with a roll of her eyes. “Whether or not she is truly Hel, a battle is a battle, and a battle is always dangerous. I know this, Iric. But it is a danger that will come even if we were to wait for its arrival.” When the admiral said nothing, she turned to Jihan. “What do you say? Should we wait, or sail to face her when we have a chance at taking her by surprise?”

The captain took his time before answering, a frown digging deep into his brow in his contemplation. The hand he had rested on the small of Haeseon’s back pressed more firmly against his furs before easing again and repeating the slight pressure over again. “You know the North and its people better than I do,” he said at last, his words slow. “If you believe it wiser to sail to confront her, we will trust your judgement and accompany you to Svalbard.”

Haeseon nodded his agreement; even if he had sensed a trap, he would never be able to let Talya sail into it on her own. Upon their approval, the Northern Cardinal grinned and clapped her hands together in a demonstrative manner. “Then it is settled,” she said and turned back to Iric. “I trust you to keep Lowe restless until we return from Svalbard. I will welcome him myself after I have gotten rid of the ally he thought he would have.”

The admiral looked far from content with the decision, but said nothing more of it. Instead, he only nodded, and without any word of farewell, he made for the doors to take his leave. When he passed the August’s crew, however, he stopped, and turned to Haeseon. “The law’s inconsistencies are not unknown to me, Yun Haeseon,” he said curtly, “but it is the law we have. Whether we like it or not, we must make due.”

With that, he disappeared out into the cold, leaving behind Haeseon stunned in his wake. He stared after the admiral for long after he had gone and the hall became filled with talk of their new destination. It was an odd thing to grasp, the thought of being treated with something akin to respect by a law’s sailor; it was the first time it had happened to him, even since before he chose a pirate’s life for his own.

“He can put aside his creed and his duty for long enough to be human with us, who are human as well,” Talya had told him mere hours prior. For some inexplicable reason, it made him want to cry.

The crews did not linger in the hall for long. What with their destination now settled, they were quick to make their way back to their ships and cast off, with plans to sail along the coast of the mainland in case they were to run out of supplies on the way. Talya, who had made the journey to the Faroe Islands aboard Freyr’s vessel, now boarded the August, ceasing her gushing over Haeseon’s bravery only for long enough to declare she wanted to keep him company on the way.

Haeseon smiled from the confinements of her embrace, and did his best to pretend he could not feel Freyr’s gaze boring into the back of his head.

They had been at sea for a matter of hours when a sudden thought struck Haeseon. “He spoke the tongue of Joseon very well,” he said. He was seated in the galleys with Seunggi pressed against his side and Talya, in her Blessing’s form, curled around them both to give them warmth. “Iric Ried, I mean. I didn’t realise it at the time, but he barely hesitated or staggered with his words.”

Jihan gave a thoughtful hum. “If sailors are trained in the West as they are in the East, every one of them are taught the tongues of the Four Cardinals,” he said. “It was always been so. As a sailor, you may find yourself in a situation where you must communicate with your enemy, and since the Four Cardinals are the greatest enemies of them all…” He left the rest of the sentence unfinished, dismissing it with a shrug. “It is also in the event of a transfer. If a sailor is sent to foreign waters to assist in the capture of a Cardinal or any other pirate, they must be able to take and give commands without a translator to diminish the weight of their words.”

“I never knew that,” Haeseon said with marvel in his voice. “Then Iric Ried must speak four tongues at least.”

“At least,” Jihan echoed, nodding. “As an admiral, I imagine he speaks even more. He knows the mother tongues of all Cardinals, as well as his own. Given his high rank, it is likely he has served the queen’s sailors for far longer than all acting Cardinals have held their power. He’s like to know the tongues of the previous Cardinals of the West and East as well.”

“How many languages do you speak again, Jihan?” Jun asked from where he was seated with Daewon, Lucya, and Xiao, engaged in a game of Hangman’s Mercy. “I’ve forgotten.”

Jihan took a moment to count, folding down a finger for every one he thought of. “Seven,” he said at last. “Jalen Kayote and Sabelsdottír were Cardinals already when I underwent my training, so I learned their mother tongues early enough. Lowe rose to fame during my final year, so I speak his as well. The previous Cardinal of the East was from India, so I know its most common dialect.” He pursed his lips in thought. “I learned the tongue of Russia as well,” he said, “since Joseon was heavily involved in trade with them at the time of my service. I thought it a necessary thing.”

The truth of his words came slowly to Haeseon, whose eyes grew wide when it dawned on him. “You speak Talya’s language?” he asked and threw a glance at the ancient tiger curled around him and Seunggi. She was hardly paying any heed to the discussion that concerned her, caught in a state of bliss as she rested her great head in the quartermaster’s lap and had him scratch behind her ears and along her jaw.

“Yes,” Jihan said, lips quirking into an amused smirk at the sight his brother made.

“But…” Haeseon did not know why it was such a strange thought, but he couldn’t quite fathom it. “But you never do,” he said slowly. “You always speak to her in our tongue.”

The captain looked at him, the grin slipping from his lips as he took on a bewildered expression, as if he was surprised Haeseon would say such a thing. “Of course,” he said. “She is your friend before anything else, songbird. Whether a fellow Cardinal or an ally of my crew, your bond with her is far stronger. Perhaps if I met her in private, I would speak her tongue, but…” He smiled again, a small one meant only for Haeseon. “You’re always with me or with her,” he said, his voice growing quiet. “It would be unfair of me to address her with words you can’t understand.”

A warmth settled heavily in Haeseon’s chest, until he felt as though his heart might’ve burst. “Oh,” he uttered and pulled his furs more firmly around himself, suddenly shy to meet his beloved’s gaze. It was overwhelming, and he buried the aching width of his smile into his hands. “Thank you, Jihan,” he murmured. “I—that is very sweet of you.”

His shyness had Jihan chuckling, a sound he was quick to turn into a cough when Talya flicker her tail against Haeseon’s side and snorted, a gleaming yellow eye peering up at him from Seunggi’s lap. Her teasing was clear as day even without a voice to speak it and only served to make him even more flustered.

Thankfully, he was saved by Xiao, who made his way over to them after having given up on his losing streak of Hangman’s Mercy. “I didn’t know ya spoke so many tongues, cap’n,” he said. “Does tha’ mean ya could’ve spoken ta both Kayote ‘n Lowe in their mother tongues at the meetin’ of the Cardinals in Shanghai? Ya knew what Kayote was sayin’ even without his translator?”

“I understood every worthless word that fell out of that bastard’s mouth, aye,” Jihan spat, all prior fondness gone from his voice. “And I have no intention on granting them the comfort of being spoken to in their own languages. I don’t respect either one of them enough for that. When it comes to Lowe, it doesn’t matter much; he speaks our tongue well enough. But Kayote… fuck, I despise that bastard.”

A murmur of agreement went through the galleys, one Haeseon silently agreed with. He did not like to say such words out loud, but he hated the Red Plague as well, if not for the cruel words he had spoken during the Gathering of the Four Cardinals, then for the terror he had instilled in Haeseon ever since his childhood.

He was quick to push all thoughts of the Southern Cardinal out of his head, far too content with where he was just then. Instead, he clung to warmth in his chest from Jihan’s words and leaned back against Talya’s strong form, allowing the smile to stay on his lips for as long as it would. After all, with where they were sailing, there would hardly be many more chances for him to be at peace in the way he was now.

-

everything i wanted to say here went flying out the window because jihan is the husband of the year okay he's so sweet and considerate oh my god :((( i mean sure they're sailing to fight hel and that's exciting and all but like jihan doesn't speak icelandic with talya because he doesn't want haeseon to feel left out :((((( please he's so soft and considerate and he cares so much i'm gonna crY

also goddAYUM i love talya so much

hOKAY next week is finals week at uni, wISH ME LUCK Y'ALL


	11. chapter 10 - Risk

ayo! this is a bit of a shorter chapter since i'm in the middle of finals week and am currently trying to memorize a 5-minute presentation in kOREAN and hhhhhhhit's picking at my brain like... like sOMETHING sjhdjshd  
STILL. THERE BE SUSPICIONS AND FEELS AND NEW PEOPLE and that dumbass freyr aND PLANS AND STUFF

JUST

THE REST OF THE STUFF COMES NEXT WEEK SJHDSJDH

-

Ever since taking his place aboard the August, Haeseon had thought of himself as someone who loved the sea beyond measure. He loved its vastness and freedom, its unpredictability. He still did not know how to swim, but the ocean never frightened him in the way it perhaps should. Even during storms of thunder and high waves, Haeseon loved the sea all the same, and thought it an unmeasurable bond, precious beyond compare.

That is, until he saw how Talya was when she stood aboard a sailing ship.

The first time he had seen her sail had been in the heat of battle, thus he had been too distracted to properly notice it, but now, as they were approaching the coast of Svalbard, Haeseon couldn’t help but concede that the Northern Cardinal shared her soul with the ocean itself.

As soon as they had reached open seas, Talya had gone to stand outside in the cold to watch the waves. She had stood by the figurehead for hours and hours and merely looked at the sea, before climbing halfway up the shrouds and settling there to do just the same. The smile on her lips never faltered for a moment and the winter chill lost its bite in the face of her contentedness, even as her cheeks grew red and frost clung to her hair.

Haeseon would hardly have been surprised had she thrown herself into the sea and swam. A week they had been at sea, and the Northern Cardinal had spent the majority of those days out on deck while the August’s crew shuddered in the meek warmth of the galleys.

“She cannot be human,” Yeonshin said on the morning of their eight day at sea. He stared after Talya as she all but pranced back outside after joining them for a plain breakfast of hard bread and dried, salted fish. “No one could possibly survive in the cold for so many hours, least of all enjoy it.”

“The northern ships do not have cabins and rooms like ours do,” Daewon reminded him. “Their sailors grow used to the harsh climate in a manner we don’t have to. Our winters are short, and far warmer than this.” He jerked his head towards the ceiling. “Lucya is of the North as well, which is likely why she is so willing to keep watch by the helm so often.”

“A Blessing in itself, she is,” Jihan said with a huff, his breath misting in the air. He sat by Haeseon’s side, pressed firmly against him in an attempt to share in his Blessing’s warmth in spite of the many layers of furs he wore. “Fuck, this cold makes me miss the East. I’d take a bout with Son Jukan over this any time.”

“You may get your wish sooner rather than later,” Jun said. He threw a glance at the doorway and lowered his voice into a murmur, having grown used to the Northern Cardinal’s sharp hearing. “If she is to be believed, this entire affair with Hel will come to a swift end after we ambush her and her followers atop the glacier.”

Haeseon frowned at his choice of words and the tone with which he spoke. He knew not all of them agreed with Talya’s decision to sail to Svalbard—even he himself had his doubts about their quest—and it made him all the more nervous in the face of the battle to come. It made his hands tremble to think of it, and neither Jihan’s sweet kisses or whispers pressed against the scars of his neck could make them stop, dull as they were to his ear.

For all his nervousness, however, he trusted Talya. Rash as she could appear at times, she always seemed to know just what she was doing and what was happening around her. Her mind for battle was spectacular, as far as Haeseon had seen, and he wished his friends could learn to see it as well.

“She is very rash,” Yeonshin said quietly. “Cardinal or no, she’s leading us into unknown lands to fight an enemy we know nothing of. A goddess, no less.” He shuddered, either from the cold or the prospect. “Even though it would be frustrating, wouldn’t it be safer to wait? That admiral said so, too.”

“Waiting may ensure us a field advantage, that much is true,” Daewon said, “but we do not know what Hel is capable of or what likely actions she would take when she would finally strike. If all else fails now, at least we will learn more about her.”

“If all else fails,” Jun echoed with a humourless laugh. “You mean if we all die at the hands of a vengeful goddess?”

The first mate grimaced at his solemn jest. “That’s far from what I meant, Jun,” he said.

“I know what you meant,” the cook retorted, far from pacified. “But it is a likelihood, isn’t it? Sabelsdottír may know these lands and their people, but we don’t. If she makes a mistake, the consequences will affect us every bit as much as it will her.”

Haeseon parted his lips to protest, but Seunggi beat him to it, looking up from his hands, which had toyed with Kyujang’s gilded flower. “I don’t see how this is so different from what we did with the Rabid Conflagration,” he said in a tone of defensiveness. “We summoned him to us without knowing how many ships he would bring. In a way, we went into that battle blind as well. How is this so different?”

“Aye, li’l Gi’s right,” Xiao rumbled, nodding. “If we only waited ‘n waited, we’d be givin’ that goddess lady or whoever she is all the time ‘n the world ta gather an army ta bear down on us with. If she’s plannin’ somethin’ up on that glacier, maybe we can stop it.”

“If she is indeed planning something there, she would have made sure she is well guarded,” Yeonshin pointed out. “I doubt she would simply let us walk up to her encampment and take her by surprise. She might’ve placed lookouts all across the glacier to warn her of approaching danger, and then she would be the one to ambush us, instead of the other way around.”

The protests died in Haeseon’s throat only to be swiftly replaced by a worry far more intense than before. He trusted Talya, of course he did, but what the others said was true as well. Their task was riddled with risks and things that could go wrong, and it shamed him to find himself unable to defend his dear friend and her decision. “Jihan,” he said quietly and turned to his beloved. “What do you think?”

Although his words were meant for the captain alone, every face in the galley turned their way, expectant and waiting. For a long moment, Jihan said nothing, only stared into the table at which they sat, as if its surface held the answer for him to read. His conflict was obvious in the way his jaw moved with unspoken words, and when he finally did reply, his words began with a sigh.

“Whichever way it is, we don’t have much of a choice,” he said, frowning. “Sabelsdottír would not agree to retreat now, even if we told her we would not go with her to the glacier. She would go with her crew and her son’s, and risk dying without our help.” As if fearing his words would upset Haeseon, Jihan placed a hand over his and gave it a firm squeeze. “We will go with her. We might be what tips the scale of battle between victory and defeat, and we will do what we came here to do.”

A murmur of, “Aye, captain,” went through the galleys, although Jun looked far from content. He said nothing, only pressed his lips together and turned away, and Haeseon was left wondering if there was a deeper reason for his worry. He attempted to catch the cook’s gaze, but Jun kept his eyes stubbornly on the wall, even when Daewon leaned over to speak quietly in his ear.

“Don’t look so worried, songbird,” Jihan said against his temple, the warmth of his breath causing Haeseon to shudder. “Jun will be alright. He doesn’t like talk of gods and goddesses and beings beyond the grasp of humanity, so he is more nervous than he usually would be.”

Upon his words, Haeseon remembered how the cook had been when faced with the Pirate Priestess during the meeting of the Four Cardinals. “Oh,” he uttered and frowned. “I didn’t realise it would be hard for him.”

“I know,” the captain said. “And I know you as well, so remember that it’s not that he doesn’t trust Sabelsdottír’s judgement, but his own reasons that make him wary.”

Haeseon nodded and turned away, sighing as he pressed his face against Jihan’s shoulder. “I hope this will all be over soon enough,” he mumbled. “I don’t like being so tense all the time.”

“And I fucking hate this stupid cold,” the captain huffed, although he grinned when Haeseon emitted a chiming giggle. “Perhaps we ought to visit India again after this. Mumbai is said to be scorching hot this time of year.”

“As if you wouldn’t complain about the heat as soon as we stepped ashore,” Yeonshin said with a scoff before Haeseon could so much as part his lips to reply. “Your pale arse would burn in a matter of seconds, and then we would have to spend the rest of our visit listening to you whine and—hey!”

The surgeon had to all but throw himself to the floor to dodge the hard leather glove Jihan flung at him. “You be quiet,” the captain said while the rest of the crew snickered at Yeonshin’s misfortune, “or I’ll have you sleep outside on deck from now on.”

“I’d like to see you try and make me!” the surgeon crowed, before ducking under the table when Jihan threw his other glove at him.

The captain jostled in his seat as if he was about to rise from it, and Haeseon laughed along with the others when Yeonshin scrambled to his feet as quickly as he could, ready to make a break for it. Jun rolled his eyes and sighed at their game, and Jihan grinned when Seunggi took over for him and all but flung himself at the surgeon, clutching to him while he struggled to stay upright.

However short-lived it would be, Haeseon basked in their moment of cheeriness and let it make him calm, not a tremor in sight as he clapped his hands in glee at the spectacle.

-

Although Svalbard was an island of nearly the same size as Iceland, most of its surface was covered with icy wastelands and mountains. Talya guided them to a fjord up north, where they could cast anchor without risk of being seen by anyone who inhabited the island’s lone village. There was nothing around them but ice and snow, and a long day’s trek to the town to fetch ropes and picks for their boots to make climbing the glacier easier.

Freyr and Qasim were waiting for them at the fjord’s bay when the August arrived, the boy’s ship far quicker than Jihan’s. They had raised a small camp with a fire to keep them warm, and were brewing a pot of mulled wine by the time the August’s crew and Talya stepped ashore. While the Northern Cardinal went to her son and husband to greet them after over a week apart, Freyr’s crew passed mugs around to the newcomers, appearing far more friendly than their captain had been so far.

A young woman of Eastern descent handed Haeseon his cup, smiling and bowing her head as she did. “Here you are,” she said in the clear tongue of Joseon. She was taller than him, with her dark hair braided and swept out of her face. “Be careful, it is very hot.”

“Thank you,” Haeseon said, failing to mask his surprise. Talya had mentioned an Eastern girl sailing with her son, but he had not expected her to be from his homeland. “You’re from Joseon.”

“Busan, yes,” she said and nodded. “My name is Oh Ahrim, and you are Yun Haeseon. The Ocean’s Harpy.”

Haeseon threw a glance Freyr’s way, wondering what the boy had said about him to his crew. “Yes,” he said tentatively.

The woman either failed to notice his hesitance, or pretended she could not see it. “Sabelsdottír spoke of you in the letters she has sent our captain,” she said by way of explanation. “And Qasim spoke plenty of you on our journey here.”

“Really?” Haeseon asked, brows arching in surprise. Talya’s husband had never shown much interest for him, at least not in the same way Talya had, thus he had not expected the man to mention him outside of his presence. “Qasim did?”

“Of course,” Ahrim said, as if it was an obvious matter. Then she uttered a little, “Oh,” and added, “although he did mostly use your name as a subject for teasing our Cardinal…” Her voice trailed off into a sheepish smile. “Forgive me. It was rude of me to say.”

“No, it is alright,” Haeseon said and smiled as well. There was a note of curiosity gnawing at the back of his mind; he wanted to ask her why she was so far from home and how she had come to sail alongside Talya’s son, but he thought it a strange thing to ask of someone he had only just met. Instead, he took a sip of the drink she had given him, humming at the strong yet unbelievably warm flavour. “Thank you for bringing me something to drink, lady Ahrim,” he said and bowed his head.

She tittered, her hand flying up to hide her smile. “Qasim was right about your politeness,” she said. “I can see now why my captain struggles so.” She shook her head at her own words and bowed her head before Haeseon could ask. “I hope we may be friends,” she said and retreated towards her crew. “And that we may survive the battle to come, Yun Haeseon.”

With that, she turned on the heel and left Haeseon confused in her wake, uncertain of what to make of her odd statement. He took another sip of his wine and shuddered at its warmth before turning to join the rest of the August’s crew.

“Who was she?” Seunggi asked, peering at the woman from over the edge of his own mug.

“Her name is Oh Ahrim,” Haeseon said. “She sails aboard Freyr’s ship.”

“Yes, but who was she?” the quartermaster insisted, as if Haeseon had failed to understand his true intention. “What did she say to you? Did that little—did Sabelsson send her to talk to you? Was she rude?”

Haeseon frowned at the accusation and nudged his friend in the side to make him turn away. “Of course not,” he said, chiding. “She brought me my drink. She was friendly, Gi.”

While Seunggi huffed, wholly unconvinced, Daewon emitted a thoughtful hum. “I wonder what Blessing she bears,” he said. “If every one of Sabelsson’s crew wields a Blessing of their own, she must have one as well.”

Jihan snorted, every bit as unamused as his brother. “Perhaps Sabelsson will show us before long,” he said dryly, “when he rips it out of her with his own Blessing of Command.”

The contempt in his voice was clear as day—he did little to hide it—and Haeseon sighed, made agitated by the crew’s dislike of Talya’s son. Patience, he wanted to tell them, but knew it would fall on deaf ears. If not for Talya, then for me.

After everyone had received their mugs of hot wine, Talya raised the question of their plans. “We must be careful in approaching the village south of here,” she said. “If we go too many at once, news will spread of our presence here, and Hel may hear it and make herself ready for us. No more than two should go to bring the things we need.”

“The North knows your crew,” Freyr told her. “They know your names and faces, thus it’d be a risk if any of you went.” He smiled at his mother, as if he was smug of the offer he made. “I will go. I’m not yet as well-known as you. They won’t know my face.”

Talya grinned and reached over to bury her hands in her son’s hair and ruffle it. “Good boy,” she said when she let go, and turned to the others. “Who will go with him?”

Before anyone else could as much as consider it, Haeseon took a step forward and raised his hand. “I will go,” he said, smiling in spite of the bewilderment he could feel radiating from the August’s crew and the sharp look Freyr sent his way. “I can go with him.”

The Northern Cardinal all but beamed and skipped over to take Haeseon by the arm and drag him away from Jihan and the others before they could voice their obvious protests. “Thank you, darling Haeseon,” she said, half-embracing him as they walked. “It will calm me to know my son is in good hands. And you two can learn more about each other now.”

She was so overcome with cheeriness, it was difficult for Haeseon to pay heed to the discontent way in which Freyr was looking at him. Rather than meet his gaze, when Talya let him go, Haeseon turned to the August’s crew and found them all staring back at him with varying degrees of disbelief.

Jihan’s concern was clear as day, so Haeseon sent him a reassuring smile in attempt to appease him. What Talya had said was true; this was a good opportunity for him to bridge whatever gap had been wedged between himself and Freyr. In spite of the boy’s curt attitude so far, Haeseon wanted them to be friends, if only for Talya’s sake. “May I accompany you?” he asked of Freyr, whose smile was stiff as stone.

“Of course,” the boy said. It was a wonder the Northern Cardinal could not see his obvious reluctance. “I would be honoured to walk with the songbird.”

“Oh, but do not call him that,” Talya said and nudged Haeseon’s side, grinning from ear to ear. “That name is special, and only for the Black Fox to use.”

Haeseon pretended as if he could not recognise the spite that hid in Freyr’s voice when he hummed in reply. Instead, he returned Talya’s smile and sent a quick look Jihan’s way before turning to the direction of the village they would visit. “Let us go,” he said with as much cheeriness as he could muster.

It was going to be a long walk, that much he knew.

-

i'm posting this quick as all heck and then i'm back to studyingjshdjsdhjsd all i'm gonna say is that sOMEONE NEEDS TO KICK FREYR'S ASS AND I HOPE IT'LL BE HAESEON BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE HAESEON COULD BENEFIT FROM KICKING FREYR'S ASS A LI'L BIT

or then ahrim she seems like a fairly decent candidate... bUT who knows what her deal actually is huhuhu~

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND MERRY FINALS Y'ALL!!!


	12. chapter 11 - Mistake

i'm a few hours later than usual, but i'm in a different time-zone right now and it's still very much wednesday here, so~~

this is basically the second half of last week's shorter chapter! huhuhu it's time to see haeseon and freyr become just the best of friends, ayyyyyyyyy

pff

ON WITH THE SHOW

-

By the time they reached the lone village at the western coast of Svalbard, Haeseon was regretting ever having offered to accompany Freyr anywhere. The trek had taken them several hours, and every last one of those hours had been plagued by a tension Haeseon could not seem to break no matter how hard he’d tried.

Freyr hadn’t been rude, per se. He hadn’t been cold or spiteful, or said terrible things. He had simply been curt. He had never once spoken a word without first being prompted by Haeseon. When he did speak, his replies were short and disinterested, with no attempt whatsoever to further whatever conversation Haeseon had attempted to spark. Silences had stretched long between their brief talks, during which Haeseon had done his best to think of something, anything else to speak of. Anything at all that could draw a genuine interest out of Talya’s son.

He had given up in the final hour, and resigned himself to the uncomfortable quiet that hung over the two as they trudged through the snow. I should’ve stayed with Jihan, he had thought with a sullen look at Freyr.

Determined as he had been to befriend the son of his dear friend, it was steadily growing more and more difficult to stay in good spirits and keep an open mind in regards to the boy.

Thus he was thankful when they finally reached the outskirts of the village. It gave the silence between them an excuse; curious as he was, Haeseon momentarily became distracted from his failure in his task to bridge the gap between himself and Freyr. He peered at the people milling about the little huts and houses, and marveled at their garb; not only were they dressed from head to toe in what looked like four layers of warm cloth and furs, but they wore masks over their faces as well. Their nose and lips were covered in a manner that reminded Haeseon of the mask Seunggi had worn before Kyujang had given him his gilded one.

“Why do their hide their faces?” he asked before he could stop himself, his companion’s reluctance slipping his mind. “It is not so cold.”

Freyr’s retorting scoff was hardly an unexpected thing, but Haeseon was surprised when the boy gave him a proper answer for his question. “They do not have feathers to keep them warm,” he said dryly, “and they have been out in the cold for far longer than you have. They are never warm here, and in winter, frostbite may claim their nose if they’re not careful.” He smirked at the startled look Haeseon sent his way. “Not a pretty thought, is it? The world is not so kind here in the North.”

Haeseon frowned at the implication that the world had been in any way kind in the East. It made him think of all the terrible things he had seen happen to those around him ever since boarding the August, thoughts he did not like to have. Despite his best efforts, a twinge of offense rose to his chest. He did his best to suppress it and keep it at bay, and merely pressed his lips together before following after Freyr.

The people of the small town threw curious looks after them as they walked past, some even stopping and staring after Haeseon. Nervous as it did make him, he understood them well enough; he didn’t imagine many from the East had come to the town before, least of all someone who so obviously bore a Blessing. He did his best to appease them, smiling and politely bowing his head whenever he met someone’s eyes. It made their murmurs escalate, although they sounded far from discontent; while Haeseon could not understand their words, by the way their cheeks bunched up beneath their masks and their eyes glinted, they were smiling as well.

Freyr was not as impressed by his manners. “You’re drawing attention to us,” he said, his breath misting with his huff. “We have come to fetch supplies, not preen like some celebrity.”

“I wasn’t preening,” Haeseon said. He did not like how defensive his own tone was, but the accusation was an unfair one. “I was simply being kind. It would be far worse if I ignored them or pretended to be above their curiosity of strangers in such a small village.” Like you, he wanted to add, and immediately felt guilty for it.

“Whatever you say, little bird,” Freyr said, his dismissal clear as day. Perhaps in order to brush off any argument Haeseon might’ve had, he turned to one of the villagers with a humourless smile and spoke in foreign words. The man nodded and pulled down his mask to answer, pointing towards the harbour while he did.

When he turned back, his eyes lingered on Haeseon. They flickered all across his face, and when Haeseon smiled and bowed in greeting, the man replied in kind, a careful smile to his lips as he nodded his head.

As soon as he was gone, Freyr heaved a sigh, shaking his head as he started in the direction they’d been given. “Perhaps you should not have come,” he said bluntly. “You stand out too much. The village will speak of foreigners.”

A foreign kind of ire seeped into the offense in Haeseon’s chest. “Is it not better that they speak of foreign visitors?” he asked. “If they spoke of Northern strangers, it would be more alarming for Hel if she heard. No one will mistake me for the Northern Cardinal.” When Freyr only snorted and rolled his eyes, Haeseon pressed on. “However it is, I wanted to come,” he said. “Our quest makes me nervous, and I want to do what I can for my friend to ensure nothing goes wrong.”

His confession had the boy huffing out a dry chuckle. “Why does it make you nervous?” he asked. There was spite in his voice now. “Are you afraid?”

“Of course I am,” Haeseon said. It was not the first time he’d been asked this question, and just as before, he saw no reason to lie and deny it. He was not so proud. “Are you not? We are journeying to fight someone the North claims to be a goddess. A goddess of death, no less, but even if she was the goddess of life, I would be afraid all the same.”

“So,” the boy’s voice was cold now, “you doubt my mother and the decision she has made.”

Haeseon tore his eyes away from the shop they had been looking for, its front lined with ropes and picks, to stare at Freyr with eyes wide with incredulity. “That is not what I said,” he said.

When Freyr rounded on him, his eyes were every bit as cold as his voice. “That is precisely what you said,” he sneered. The only thing that remained of his facade now was the thin smile on his lips, one that reminded Haeseon of the smile with which Qasim had observed Son Jukan amidst their battle at sea. “Journeying to face Hel was her choice, and you do not agree with it. You’re nervous and afraid in the face of it.”

He crossed his arms over his chest, and Haeseon suddenly became aware of just how much bigger Freyr was than he. “You call yourself her friend,” he said with a scoff, “yet you do not trust her. She’s older than you and far wiser. She knows more of the world than you might ever do, yet you think yourself smarter than her.”

“That,” Haeseon began, but he was so shocked by the boy’s sudden harshness, he did not know what to say. “That is not—”

“If you claim to be such good friends,” Freyr crowed, “you should have some faith in her.”

With that, he turned on the heel and stormed towards the shop, leaving Haeseon utterly flabbergasted in the wake of his outburst. He stared after the boy for several long seconds, thrown so off guard he did not know what to think. In his incredulity, the offense in him flared without restraint, and his hands trembled before he had the sense to clench them and break himself out of his ire.

Calm, he told himself, although for a moment he could not imagine why he should be. He drew a deep breath and let the icy air chill the burning sensation in his chest, and made himself think of Talya. Don’t take it to heart. He repeated the words to himself twice, three times, before easing out of his tension and entering the store.

Freyr stood at the counter, speaking lowly with the shopkeeper, so Haeseon purposely busied himself by the farthest wall. To distract himself from their argument, he walked along the cramped shop and looked at the various things they sold. It seemed to be all tools meant for climbing: boots with thick soles, ice picks, and sacks one could tie around the chest to keep both hands free. They made Haeseon imagine the dreadful task of scaling the steep side of a mountain, a thought that made him shudder even in his furs.

He was observing what looked like hooks one could attach to one’s shoes when someone approached him. Haeseon looked up, frowning already at the thought of having to speak with Freyr, only to find a woman standing by his side. She was looking at him with unabashed curiosity and interest swimming in her eyes, and when he startled at her sudden presence, she chuckled and spoke in a voice both gentle and firm all at once.

“Oh,” Haeseon uttered when she inclined her head in waiting for him to answer whatever it was she had asked. Flustered, he raised his hands and frantically attempted to think of a way to convey to the woman that he did not speak her tongue with only the gestures of his hands.

He was saved by Freyr, who had made his way over after speaking with the shopkeeper. “She wants to know if you need help in choosing the correct hook,” he said with a smugness Haeseon chose to ignore.

“Oh,” he said again and looked from Freyr to the woman. “Oh, no, I was only…” Unsure of how to address her with no common language, he offered her a reassuring smile instead and hoped she would understand. “I was only looking. I’ve never seen these before.”

The woman’s gaze flickered to Freyr in waiting of an interpretation, and while he heaved a sigh like it was the greatest task anyone had ever asked of him, the boy repeated Haeseon’s words in her tongue all the same. She hummed when he did and reached up to push the hood of her coat out of her face. Without the shade of the garb, her eyes shone clear and green, and her hair was wild as if she had gone years without attempting to tame it. Even with the mask she wore over her nose and lips, Haeseon could tell she was older than him by quite some years.

“Where are you from, youngling?” This time, Freyr translated without prompt, following the woman’s words as she spoke. “You must’ve come from far away if you’ve never seen hooks like these before.”

Awkward as it was to speak through the boy he had only minutes prior had an argument with, Haeseon replied as bravely as he could. “I come from the East,” he said. “My home was once Jeju, an island on the coast of the kingdom of Joseon.”

The woman’s eyes grew wider with awe at what Freyr said to her, before she smiled and nodded with enthusiasm. When she spoke, her words were bright, although they still carried the softness of her voice. Whatever it was she said, it had Freyr rolling his eyes, but upon her prompt, he translated her words all the same. “She asks if every boy from the East has hair as lovely as yours,” he said. “She says she has never seen a boy as pretty as you.”

Haeseon grew flustered at that, heat rushing to his cheeks. He stuttered his way through an incoherent denial of her words, and she emitted a throaty laughter at his shyness. “I don’t know what to say to that,” Haeseon mumbled and instead bowed his head and held it low in an attempt to save himself from having to answer at all. He was not good with praise or flattery, lest it came from his beloved.

The woman did not seem to expect an answer from him, happy to simply smile and resume speaking. She asked another question, her tone lilting up in curiosity, and the annoyance Freyr had done little to hide went stiff with tension, his smile growing hard. His sudden nervousness seeped into his voice when he replied in her tongue without taking the time to translate for Haeseon. Whatever it was he said, the woman merely tittered at his reply and waved it away without looking away from Haeseon, so Freyr turned his way as well, and spoke curt, stiff words. “She wonders what an Eastern pirate is doing so far from his own seas.”

Whatever comfort Haeseon had felt in the woman’s presence vanished in the blink of an eye, only to be replaced with the same tension that had seized Freyr. He parted his lips and closed them again, alarm thrumming through his body as he floundered for what he should say. “Ho-how can she know?” he asked in a nervous whisper, as if the woman could’ve suddenly understood his words had he spoken them loudly.

Upon noticing their tension, she waved her hand again and smiled behind her mask, speaking words that were obviously meant to be soothing. Some of Freyr’s stiffness eased and he rolled his shoulders in reply to Haeseon’s question. “If she has lived on this island the whole of her life, she would know what a pirate looks like,” he said. “For starters, you told her your home used to be some island in the East. Very few honest souls renounce their old homes when taking to the sea.”

“Oh,” Haeseon uttered for the third time. “I see.” There was not a trace of hostility in the woman’s leisure posture or in the way she smiled, so he deemed it safe to answer the question in spite of the traces of nervousness still lingering. “I have come to help a friend in need,” he said. “She is at risk of being hurt, and I wanted to ensure it won’t happen, so I came. We came.”

Freyr snorted at that. “Oh yes, the brave little bird came with his black fox to fight death herself,” he said dryly. “Will you strike a goddess with Þórr’s lightning as well?” Without granting Haeseon time enough to reply or even process his words, he turned his words for the woman to understand. She chuckled and nodded her approval, and spoke words that had Freyr rolling his eyes all over again. “She is very impressed,” he said with no small amount of reluctance. “She says not many people, least of all pirates, would sacrifice so much for someone else.”

“Well,” Haeseon said and pinned the boy under a pointed look, “Talya is my friend, whether you like it or not.”

The smile that had stayed present on Freyr’s lips ever since they’d left the others by the shore of the fjord curdled like sour milk, but before he could say as much as a word, the woman spoke. “Talya?” The Northern Cardinal's name fell from her lips as a murmur, her eyes growing wide above the hem of her mask. “Talya Sabelsdottír?” she asked, looking between Haeseon and Freyr, who sighed and muttered a word of annoyance.

“Wonderful,” he said to Haeseon before addressing the stranger in a quiet yet none too gentle voice. He was undoubtedly attempting to excuse Haeseon's slip or pass it off as a name belonging to someone else, but the woman looked far from convinced. On the contrary, her gaze settled on Haeseon and remained there for as long as Freyr spoke, unblinking, as if she was attempting to read the truth on his face. It had him wanting to squirm in discomfort, nervousness creeping along the length of his spine.

When Freyr was done speaking, the woman stood brooding for several long seconds before she finally heaved a sigh and shook her head, attempting a smile. It did not quite reach her eyes, but Haeseon supposed he couldn't blame her for it; after all, learning of the presence of the Northern Cardinal on one’s home's shores was hardly a thing so easily treated with calm.

She was silent for a long moment before heaving a sigh and running a hand through her wild hair. She looked at Haeseon, as if she was assessing his person, and it made him want to fidget, left feeling far more exposed than he would’ve liked. Finally, she shook her head and reached out to place a hand on his shoulder. She stroked the furs around his collar and spoke a few soft words before turning away and leaving the shop.

“What did she say?” Haeseon asked, discomfort sitting heavy in his chest.

“She told you what hooks are best for your shoes,” Freyr said absently. He stared at the door, frowning in thought. “We ought to drag her with us back before my mother to ensure she doesn’t speak of what she’d heard to anyone.”

Startled, Haeseon stared up at him with discontent. “We are not doing that,” he said, far louder than intended. “Do you think rumours won’t spread like wildfire if a woman disappears from this village the same day two strangers come to visit? And even if no one would notice, we are not going to hurt someone whose only mistake was to hear me say Talya’s name.” Freyr scoffed as if Haeseon’s reaction was a ridiculous one, and it took quite some effort to swallow down the ire flooding into the discomfort in his chest. “I am sorry,” he said stiffly. “I didn’t mean to give away the nature of our company, or—”

“Of course you did not,” Freyr interrupted curtly. “Why wouldn’t you so casually speak the name every northern soul is bound to know? It’s not as if the regular folk fear my mother as if it was a curse.” He heaved a deep sigh, lips curling down in distaste. “I do hope she doesn’t tell anyone what she just heard. News of our presence would reach Hel if she did.”

Haeseon swallowed the defensiveness that urged him to argue and overturn the boy’s words, but he pushed it back in favour of his worry not only for Talya, but for the August’s crew as well. “Perhaps it would be better if we did not go looking for Hel,” he said and threw a glance at the door through which the woman had disappeared. “The risk is far greater now. Maybe we should—”

“The only thing you should do from here on out is stay quiet, little bird,” Freyr spat. “We will go all the same. If you want to be afraid, do as you please, but do not attempt to spread your fright and cowardice onto my mother or those of her crew. We will not be stalled simply because you lack the sense to be careful with your words.”

He glared at Haeseon as if daring him to protest or argue, and in his guilt, all Haeseon could do was press his lips together and say nothing at all. Upon his silence, Freyr scoffed some foreign words and turned to fetch whatever supplies he had asked of the shopkeeper, no trace of his calm facade remaining anymore.

Haeseon sighed and ran a hand through his hair, wishing he had stayed with Jihan and the others. He wanted to see them now and tell them they were right about the boy all along, and the thought alone made him feel that more guilty.

Surely, the journey back to the fjord would be ten times as unpleasant as the trek to the village had been.

-

Well.

I dare say it’s not just a “bad first impression” anymore. Freyr’s a bITCH >:[

watch me throw this brat from the glacier next chapter i sWEAR to god jihan needs to accidentally cut off his ropes or something and make him fall into a ravine uGH

fingers crossed that next week this little shit gets what he deserves eh? like a big fat prosthetic arm shoved through his sTUPID MOUTH GOOD LORD SOMEONE PUNCH HIM PLEASE—

tStNchapters  
105 Likes

lattaemeria  
you know what?? this chapter is kind of really relieving because now that we know freyr didnt just have a bad first impression and is, in fact, a Bitch, i can hate him and not feel bad about it!! So let me begin by saying FUCK FREYR THWT RUDEASS PIECE OF S HIT IF HE DOESNT WATCH IT HES GONNA GET HIS ASS B E A T AND I’LL BE PARKED IN THE FRONT ROW WITH MY POPCORN i know he is still basically a teenager and needs to gROW but THIS BOY HAS GOT TO LEARN

seriously haeseon was trying so hard to be open minded and get along, he doesnt deserve this treatment :(((( he really should have stayed with jihan but i’m glad he didnt because now i have free reign to bitch about freyr !! :) i hope haeseon will get to bury himself in jihans arms soon and forget about all the bullshit he just had to deal with<3

how is talya so kind and good and freyr is just ??? qasims fault probably. but even qasim sort of listens to haeseon :// ugh like i get he probably cares about his mother a lot and is defensive over her but like.... she has spoken of nothing but good things about haeseon, why does he have to be so (angrily) defensive over her towards haeseon :( i’ll continue to hold out hope that he’ll eventually redeem himself or makeup with haeseon somehow... talya would probably be so upset knowing how badly they get along rn :(((

also there is a small part of me that is slightly terrified freyr is just as observant as his mother and will notice haeseon’s deaf ear and spill the beans..... out of spite or something ;____; stay back, demon... sTAY BACK...

ANYWAYS its interesting the northern people in the village wear masks!! i never really thought about it but it definitely makes sense lol. i’m sure seunggi’s mask is different in style to theirs but i wonder what they’d think if they saw that pretty gold thing...! 

god freyr just putting words in haeseons mouth pisses me off aksjakajs SHUT UP AND GO AWAY 

freyr playing translator for haeseon and the shopkeeper is such an amusing parallel to grumpy jihan doing the same for haeseon in kolkata though... including being forced to tell haeseon what a pretty boy he is lmaoo (i’m sure jihan does not mind doing this particular task anymore though...) 

aww poor haeseon accidentally said talya’s name :((( not a good time to be making mistakes when they piss off your current shopping/walking companion who kind of hates you and is also the son of one of your best friends.... im worried that woman is actually gonna let it slip and somehow fuck up the crews’ mission ;-; SO MANY THINGS CAN GO WRONG ITS SCARY

anyway, dear haesae, i’m wishing u the best on ur walk back to the fjord. godspeed, haeseon. godspeed. (if only he was ok to fly again so he could yeet tf out of there....)

also *raises hand* yes hello where can i sign the petition to watch freyr get thrown from a glacier and have a special date with a certain prosthetic arm?? im very interested u see 

thank u again for the chapter maia!!! looking forward to the next one~!! happy new year :D!


	13. chapter 12 - The Climb

i'm about to pass out from exhaustion because this became longer and wAY more emotionally taxing than i'd imagined hOO BOI

-

The journey back from the village was, in Haeseon’s opinion, painful.

Not only were he and Freyr now carrying sacks heavy with picks and rope, the silence between them was far thicker than before. Partly it was due to Haeseon’s lack of effort; after their several arguments back in the village, he had no will to attempt to speak to the boy who would likely ignore him all the same. Freyr himself refused to even acknowledge Haeseon’s presence at his side. Never once during all the hours they spent walking did he glance his way, or speak a single word at all.

While Haeseon tried his best to understand the boy’s ire, it was a difficult task when everything about his behaviour made him look that more childish in his eyes. Even when he reminded himself that Freyr was indeed younger than he was, he couldn’t bring himself to simply look past the unfair things the boy had said.

Then there was the guilt as well, both for accidentally giving away Talya’s presence, and for betraying the faith the Northern Cardinal had seemed to have in both of them. The belief that the two of them would be fast friends.

A trek had never quite felt so long.

When they finally climbed up the last hill, Haeseon smiled for the first time since their departure, relief flooding his veins. The three crews were gathered around a pair of bonfires for warmth, halfway through cooking large fish over the open heat. While the northerners seemed fine in the icy weather, the August’s crew sat as close to the fire as they dared go, shuddering like leaves in a storm.

“Haesae!” Seunggi shouted and jumped to his feet as soon as he spotted them. He immediately received a smack on the arm from Yeonshin, who shushed him harshly in spite of his own smile as he waved up at Haeseon. By their side, Jihan rose from his seat as well, and even from so far away, Haeseon could see his relief.

Without paying any heed to Freyr, he took off down the slope, clumsy in his steps as slid down along the snow until he reached its base. He returned Talya’s enthusiastic wave and dropped his sack of climbing tools beside her crew as he passed, stumbling straight into his beloved’s arms. “I’ve returned,” he said breathlessly, laughing when Seunggi and Xiao all but threw themselves at the two to embrace them as well.

“How was your trek, songbird?” Jihan asked as soon as he had elbowed his way free from his brother and over-enthusiastic carpenter. “Are you alright?”

“It was,” he began and threw a cautious look Freyr’s way before lowering his voice. “It was what it was, but I’m alright. I’m fine. We got what we needed.”

The captain’s smile faltered into a frown and he followed Haeseon’s gaze to where Talya was welcoming her son back with some sort of wrestling grip around his neck. “Did he do something to you?” Jihan asked quietly. His voice was soft, but Haeseon recognised the tension all the same, as if he was ready to let anger bleed into it at any moment. “What did he say?”

Although Haeseon wanted to answer and complain about Freyr’s unfairness, he was uncomfortably aware of Qasim’s eyes on him and merely shook his head, forcing a smile onto his lips. He pecked Jihan’s cold cheek and lingered for long enough to murmur, “I’ll tell you later,” before retreating to greet the rest of the crew and distract them from their collective glaring at Talya and her son.

“He’s looking this way,” Seunggi said, taking little care to lower his voice. “Both of them are.”

Indeed, when Haeseon turned in Jihan’s arms to look Talya’s way, she was already gazing back at him with an expression of curiosity and surprise crossing her face. Freyr spoke to her all the while; he leaned close enough so he could whisper in her ear, but his eyes were trained on Haeseon the whole time.

“This isn’t uncomfortable at all,” Jun said with no small amount of contempt to his voice. “It looks like he’s attempting to turn her against you, canary.”

A shudder trailed its way down Haeseon’s spine, and he realised at once what Freyr must’ve been telling his mother. He had, after all, given away Talya’s presence at the island. No doubt the boy was letting her know, but the way he stared at Haeseon made him nervous.

His tension lasted until the Northern Cardinal shook her head in dismissal, the smile returning to her lips. She patted her son on the arm and spoke words that were undoubtedly of reassurance and comfort, but Freyr looked far from content, his jaw clenched tight with ire. Talya either did not notice or pretended not to; she grabbed the supplies Haeseon had carried and made her way over, cheery and bright as ever.

“Thank you for going with my son to help him bring us what we needed, darling Haeseon,” she said and gave his cheek a fond pinch. “I felt far better knowing you were with him.”

Haeseon smiled in return and did his best to pay no heed to the guilt sparking in his chest. “You don’t have to thank me, Talya,” he said. He wanted to take her hand in his, as he always did, but with both Freyr and Qasim’s eyes resting heavy on him, he couldn’t quite find the courage to do so. “I wanted to go with him, so I went.”

The Northern Cardinal’s smile grew wider still. “So sweet,” she said and chuckled at his shyness before turning to the others. “Now that we have what we need, we will begin our climb. The beginning is easy, and we will raise camp to sleep before we reach the high slopes.”

“So soon, Talya?” Freyr asked before anyone could so much as nod. There was a distinct spitefulness to the smirk he sent Haeseon’s way, his eyes cold as stone. “Don’t you think the little bird needs his rest? I imagine the trek was quite hard on him.”

Haeseon bristled at that, and he felt his own ire reflected in Jihan’s embrace, the captain’s hands tightening ever so slightly against his sides. He was a bit tired, that much was true enough, but after spending the better half of the day with the boy, he saw nothing but mockery in his words. “Thank you for your concern, Freyr,” Haeseon said as calmly as he could, “but I’m fine. I don’t need to rest.”

The boy shrugged, as if to wash his hands of whatever could happen during their climb. Between them, Talya was for once silent in the face of her son’s jest. For a long moment, she only looked at him without a word, her smile giving the smallest of twitches, before she turned away once more and resumed as if she hadn’t heard him. “Gather what we need,” she called to her men. “We may spend days on the glacier, so pack enough food for all of us.”

“What a rude little cunt,” Yeonshin spat as soon as she had gone out of earshot. “Are you certain this is the same child she spoke so highly of? Her pride, her precious son? This can’t be a matter of first impressions.”

“It can’t be,” Jihan echoed. His voice was harsh, a stark contrast to the gentle circles his hands pressed against Haeseon’s sides. “The songbird has given him every chance, but he throws them all aside without any attempt at cooperation, or even a peaceful alliance.”

Although Haeseon did not like how easily he agreed with the crew’s words, he couldn’t find fault in them no matter how he tried. He had tried, over and over, but if Freyr had no will or intention to be amicable, perhaps he ought to cease his attempts. “I will speak to him again,” he said to the others. “After we’re done, I will speak to him, not for the sake of making amends, but for the sake of knowing why he’s being so… so—”

“So much of a bastard?” Seunggi offered. “Such a piece of shit? An arrogant, proud arse?”

“I was going to say rude,” Haeseon said and felt his ire dissipate when the quartermaster grinned at him. “But yes, I suppose they could all be true, to some level.”

“To all levels,” Jun said with a scoff.

“Jus’ tell me if ya want me ta give ‘em a li’l warnin’, pretty bird,” Xiao said. Contrary to his usual self, the carpenter appeared more solemn, a frown set in place of his smile. “Been doin’ a lot ‘a that these days.” He threw a pointed glare at Hisashi, who clicked his tongue and turned away, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

“Oh,” Haeseon uttered, wholly uncertain of what to make of their tension. “Thank you, Xiao, but it’s alright. I can handle it on my own.” He smiled up at the carpenter. “I want to speak with him on my own.”

Behind him, Jihan nodded, and so the others let it go as well, settling for throwing one last cold look Freyr’s way before following after Talya to equip themselves for the climb. “You really are too kind, Haesae,” Seunggi said. The words were far from harsh; they were spoken fondly, as they always were. “Now, come with me. We have a goddess to defeat.”

The preparations for the climb went quickly enough. While most of them attached hooks to their shoes and tied ropes around their waist and the grips of their picks, four pirates from each crew volunteered to stay behind to guard the ships. Lucya was among them; her leg was not fit for climbing, so she returned to the ship along with Raji, the master of guns, and two of the riggers. Haeseon was sad to see her go, but he understood her choice well enough. The cold was harsh on her old injury, and scaling a glacier was hardly a thing to do it any good.

Before they began their trek, when Haeseon was securing the hooks of his shoes, Qasim stopped for a moment beside him. He made a show of inspecting his own tools, but when Haeseon looked up at him, he smirked and mused, “Disappointing, isn’t it?”

He walked away before Haeseon could ask what he spoke of, leaving him with an odd sensation in his stomach, as if he’d gone cold from the inside out. Don’t think of it, Haeseon said to himself, yet threw a glance at Freyr all the same. Don’t think of it. Not now.

Just as Talya had promised, the beginning of the ascent was easy enough. While the strong winds certainly slowed them down, the slope was not yet steep enough to require picks or hooks for their shoes. The snow beneath their feet was hardened from the cold and carried their weight well enough, only sometimes crumbling and having one of them sink down to their knee.

Talya went first with Freyr at her side, guiding the rest of them along the safest paths up towards rougher slopes. She had asked Haeseon to walk with them, but he had refused, not quite able to meet her eyes as he told her he wanted to walk with his crew. She had brushed it off easily enough and teased him for wanting to be close to his Black Fox, and left without a word about Haeseon’s guilt-ridden expression.

When they found a somewhat flat ridge along glacier’s base, Talya declared they would raise camp even though the sun had not yet begun to set. She told them it was dangerous to climb in the dark, since glaciers were tricky with cracks and ravines hiding deep beneath the snow, and so it would be far more dangerous to walk when one could not see where one placed their feet.

They slept in little tents that hardly kept the wind out. While it made it far more difficult to sleep, it did give Haeseon ample cover to properly tell Jihan what had happened with Freyr. Curled up as he lay beside the captain, he spoke in hushed words against Jihan’s chest and was grateful for the howling winds when his temper flared with ire towards the boy.

“If he opens his mouth again,” Jihan promised through gritted teeth, “I will teach him the consequences of disrespect myself.”

Haeseon hushed him, but did not chide him or tell him not to speak such threats. He only remained silent, his hands massaging the captain’s chest to soothe his anger, and tried his best to sleep all the while knowing Jihan’s promise was like to come true within a matter of days.

As much as Haeseon took pride in his own strength and capability to care for himself, he couldn’t keep the fondness blossoming in his chest at the August’s crew’s protectiveness. Aside from only Jihan and Seunggi, the rest flocked around him as well, almost as if they expected Freyr to turn around and throw himself at Haeseon at any given moment. It was sweet of them. It gave Haeseon courage to know he wasn’t alone in his uncertainty towards the boy who was his friend’s son.

On the second day, the climb became far more difficult. The glacier began to slope upwards in a steep angle, so much so that it would’ve been impossible to continue if not for the picks they had acquired. At the base of the slope, Talya showed them how to climb. She told them to never lean their weight on a pick that wasn’t properly inserted into the ice lest it give in and throw them off their ascent.

The first few meters were frightening, but as soon as Haeseon had climbed a little ways up, he realised the slope was not quite as steep as it had looked from its base. Of course, it was far from gentle, but while the picks were certainly necessary for their ascension, they was more for the sake of preventing anyone of them from slipping on the ice.

Climbing was laborious work all the same. Within minutes, Haeseon began to sweat in the many layers he wore, every muscle of him continuously strung taut in concentration. The glacier ridge felt steadier beneath his feet when he drew himself tense, but it had him tiring faster, which in turn was far from favourable. When he looked up after nearly half an hour of climbing, he could barely see the top, which meant he would get no rest for another hour at least.

“I wish I could fly,” he said breathlessly, pausing to hack his pick into the ice wall. “If I could just fly to the top, it would be so much easier.”

The wind made a valiant attempt at swallowing his words, but Seunggi heard them all the same. “Climbing must be weird when you’ve grown use to having wings to fly with,” he said. He was faring far better, barely out of breath at all even though the hair around his temples were slick with sweat. “I think Yeonshin’s worse off.”

Haeseon looked at the surgeon and pressed his lips together not to let his laughter escape. Compared to him, Yeonshin seemed irritated rather than tired, muttering under his breath as he hacked at the wall as if it was his mortal enemy. He halted his harsh act for long enough to sneeze, and then he resumed, a string of curses spilling past his lips.

“He hates the cold as much as Jihan,” Seunggi said far too cheerfully for someone fifty meters off the ground. “If not more. And he’s not used to rigorous activities such as this.” He grinned at the surgeon’s misfortune, but when he turned back to Haeseon, his expression softened. “Couldn’t you fly?” he asked. “I thought your feathers had already grown.”

“Not wholly,” Haeseon said and rolled his shoulders out of habit. “I can fly, but I’m still clumsy. Especially in this weather, it would be dangerous. These winds could throw me out of the air.”

“Oh.” Seunggi was quiet for a moment before the smile returned to his lips. “Then it looks like you’ll have to climb like the rest of us with useless Blessings, Haesae.”

Haeseon giggled at his jest and shook his head before returning his focus to the wall. The brief pause had given him his breath back, and so he mustered his strength and buried his pick in the ice once more, determined to make it the rest of the way without complaint.

At midday, the skies cleared enough to give the lot of them sight of the slope’s end. It loomed high above them and promised another hour of climbing at least, but the sight alone gave Haeseon relief. His mouth was dry with thirst and he was hungry, but he pushed those thoughts to the back of his head and continued without letting anything deter him. Jihan lagged slightly behind him, and Haeseon knew he slowed his pace on purpose. The captain worried, both for Haeseon and his brother, so he held his place where he could see them both at all times without having to turn away from the wall.

For all of Haeseon’s exhaustion, however, the climb was going well enough. There had been no accidents apart from when one of Freyr’s crew dropped one of their picks and had to take one of the few spares they had. The wind still continued to blow, but even when the clouds returned, the snow stayed within them and spared the three crews an onslaught that would’ve undoubtedly made the ascent far more difficult.

Everything was going well, and then the snow crumbled under Seunggi’s foot and threw him off his balance.

As if time had slowed, Haeseon watched the quartermaster stumble against the wall, the smile slipping fast from his face to be replaced by shock. The whole of his weight tugged sharply at the pick, whose handle broke off from its head under the sudden pull. Flailing, Seunggi grasped at the wall of ice in search of a grip, but it slipped under his gloved fingers, merciless and cruel.

Before he could stop to think, Haeseon released one of his own picks and threw his hand out in reach for his friend, but missed him by a matter of millimeters. Their eyes met, panic heavy in both, and then time returned to its regular pace and the quartermaster fell from the wall.

“SEUNGGI!”

Seunggi slid down along the icy wall for several meters before his balance was thrown backwards. He fell onto his back and was caught in a tumble, his frantic attempts at grabbing for something, anything, to stop his fall failing with the speed of his descent. He couldn’t right himself no matter how hard he tried. A muffled cry spilled from his lips when his shoulder took a painful hit against the wall before he was jarred back into motion, given no time whatsoever before he was dragged further down.

He fell, tens of meters, until his side collided hard with a ledge jutting out of the wall and broke his pace for long enough for him to latch onto the facade with all his might. Clinging to it with both his arms and legs in spite of his pain, Seunggi came to a halt some thirty meters below the rest of them.

“SEUNGGI!” Haeseon’s voice was shrill enough to cut through the howling of the wind, yet utterly weak in comparison to Jihan’s. The captain sounded more horror-struck that Haeseon had ever heard him, and if not for Daewon’s grip on his furs, Jihan would’ve surely thrown himself after his brother without a second’s hesitation. “Seunggi!” he shouted. “Seunggi, are you alright?!”

Far below them, the quartermaster scrambled against the wall, clawing at it in a frantic attempt to get as far away from the edge as possible. “Ji-Jihan!” he cried, his voice breaking with fear. “Jihan!”

The panic in his voice filled Haeseon with such distress, his breath caught in his throat and refused to move from there. “We have to help him, Jihan!” he said, his voice reduced to a high-pitched whistle. “We have to get him out of there!”

“Fuck—” Jihan looked around, desperate for anything at all that could help them now. When he found nothing, he cursed harsly under his breath and tightened his grip on his picks, moving as if to pull them out. “Hold on, Seunggi!” he shouted. “I’m coming for you!”

Daewon tightened his grip on the captain’s furs and stopped him before he could so much as free one of his picks. “You can’t climb down there, Jihan!” he said loudly.

“I’m not fucking leaving my brother!” Jihan’s voice was like cannonfire, deafeningly loud and echoing even through the howling of the wind. “Get your hands off me, Daewon!” he barked and made an attempt at shaking the first mate’s hand off.

“No one is leaving him,” Daewon persisted, “but you have to calm down!”

In his rapidly building panic, Haeseon looked up and was all but ready to faint in relief when he saw the others had stopped as well, their lead swiftly making her way down towards the lot of them. “Ta-Talya is coming,” he said. He had to repeat himself twice before his words were strong enough to reach the others. “She will know what to do, she can help!” He turned as best he could against the wall and craned his head in attempt to find his friend. “Seunggi, are you alright?! Are you hurt?!”

“My shoulder hurts,” the quartermaster said, sounding as if he spoke through gritted teeth, “b-but, Haesae—” His voice failed him and he pressed himself tight against the wall, his good eye shut tightly. “Haesae, I’m scared!”

Haeseon blinked hard against the tears in his eyes, every cell of him aching at Seunggi’s words. He swallowed the thickness in his throat and gave his all to sound reassuring, to make his voice strong even though it wanted to quiver as badly as his hands did. “We will get you up, Gi,” he cried, “I promise! I promise, s-so be calm for me!”

The quartermaster’s reply was lost in the wind’s noise, and Haeseon prayed to whomever would listen that Seunggi had heard him. “Please, please, please,” he whispered, frantic with worry. “Don’t let anything happen to him, please, please, don’t let anything—”

“What happened here?”

Haeseon jerked around so hard he nearly lost his grip on the wall. He turned to Talya and was immediately blinded by his tears, her presence alone causing relief to crash hard against his panic. “Th-the ice crumbled under Seunggi’s feet,” he managed to say. He carefully let go of one of his own picks to point, his hand trembling like a leaf. “He fell down there, you—you have to help him, Talya, please!”

“Of course I will,” she said, so firm and full of confidence Haeseon had no choice but to believe in her. Through the blur of his tears, he saw the quick smile she sent his way before securing her hooks and ropes. “I will get him back, you hear me? I will get him back, so wait here for us.”

The Northern Cardinal barely had time to readjust her grip on her picks before Jihan took hold of her arm. “I will come with you,” he said. Behind him, Daewon looked ready to burst with agitation, but the captain ignored him, barely blinking as he stared up at Talya. “I’m coming with you, Sabelsdottír.”

“Jihan, you can’t—”

“I’m going with her, Daewon, I’m not going to sit here and fucking wait!”

“But—”

“It’s alright,” Talya interrupted. For once, she was not smiling, her usual cheeriness gone in the seriousness of their task. “I will guide your way, Choi Jihan, so listen to me, yes? Do as I tell you and nothing else, or you might fall as well.” Jihan nodded without pause and released his grip on her. “Good,” she said. “After me.”

“Be careful, Jihan,” Haeseon called after them. Within his chest, his dread still fought the trust he had for his friend, until breathing became a task of its own. “Please, please, be careful.”

The captain nodded again, stiff with tension as he followed after Talya, his movements considerably clumsier than her practiced ones. Descending was far more difficult than climbing along the wall, thus their trek down was slow. While they went, the three crews waited, the whole of the August’s crew with bated breath, dreading a slip or mistake from either Jihan or Seunggi. Talya guided the captain well, speaking words of guidance for every meter they descended. She led him with patience he certainly did not have, and he followed without rushing, although his tension never once eased, even for a second.

It seemed like an eternity had time to pass before they finally reached the ledge where Seunggi sat pressed against the wall. Haeseon would’ve been relieved, but as soon as Jihan reached out for him, he knew something was wrong.

The quartermaster refused to take Jihan’s hand. He shook his head and spoke in frantic, incoherent words, his eyes cast over the edge of the shelf of ice on which he sat. Haeseon couldn’t hear what he said

Beside himself with distressed, Haeseon leaned out as far as he dared. “Seunggi, take Jihan’s hand!” he shouted. “You have to go with them! They will help you back here!”

“My flower.” Seunggi’s voice was dull and distant in Haeseon’s ears until he turned his head to the right. “M-my flower,” he said again, his voice high with panic. His good eye was wide with tears, the whole of him trembling as he reached up and touched the hairs above his temple. “Kyujang’s flower, it f-fell.” His breathing grew harsher. “I-it fell.”

“Oh gods.” Next to Haeseon, Jun whispered a curse under his breath. “He won’t come without the flower.”

Another wave of distress broke out amongst the August’s crew. Haeseon looked down at his friend, his heart beating hard in his throat, and it took him only a moment to make his choice. “I will fetch it,” he said. It did not matter how frightening a thought it was; if it could bring Seunggi out of his state of dread, he would do whatever it took. “I can fetch it.”

“You will—” Realisation was quick to dawn on the cook, his eyes growing wide. “Canary, you can’t,” he said loudly. “Your wings are too weak to fly in this kind of weather!”

Haeseon had said as much not hours ago, but now, he pretended as if it wasn't true. “They’re fine,” he said and reached for his throat, where the binds of his furs were tied. He paid no heed to the cook’s protests, nor to Yeonshin or Daewon or Xiao’s when they realise what he was about to do. One by one, he pulled off his furs, growing colder for every layer he shed. “Hold these for me.”

He passed them to Jun, who barely managed to catch them against his chest. “Canary—”

“Seunggi won’t let go of that ledge until he has his flower,” Haeseon cut him off before he could even begin. His blood was rushing in his veins, fuelled both by his dread and his Blessing’s determination. “I will fetch it so we can save him!”

The cook’s conflict was clear as day, but in that moment, he knew there was no arguing to be done. “Just be careful,” he said tightly, “please.”

“I will be,” Haeseon said and shrugged out of his final layer of robes, the one Jihan had given him before landing in Shanghai many months past. The cold air sank its teeth into his arms and back, prickling like knives at his bare skin until his teeth clattered. It made the air in his lungs heavy, breathing itself even more so, but he closed his eyes and made himself ignore the biting chill in favour of calling on his Blessing’s wings.

The canary came to him with ease, even though its discontent was clear as day. His feathers warmed him, but they were not made for a northern climate, unsuccessful in completely repelling the winter winds. “A little more, a little more,” Haeseon urged, pleading. He winced at the sensation of his newly grown feathers attempting to make themselves larger than they were, so that they would be able to carry him safely through the harsh winds.

Once his wings had grown fully, Haeseon gave himself no rest at all. Not only would the weather not have allowed it, the winds tearing at his wings, but his impatience was every bit as big of a culprit. Somewhere above him, he heard voices of marvel and surprise, but he paid them no heed before he drew a deep breath and threw himself off the glacier’s slope.

The harsh winds made it difficult to keep upright in his flight. They pushed him this way and that and attempted to slip through his feathers and make him fall, as if it was their very goal. He ground his teeth and refused to give in to their will, the muscles of his arms straining with the effort it took to remain where he wanted to be in the air.

In spite of his struggles, there was a flicker of glee deep within his chest. Even in his distress, he recognised it for what it was; the canary in him was thrilled by their flight after having gone so long without. They were exhilarated by it, both of them were, and it gave Haeseon the strength to fight against the terrible winds.

He made it down towards the ledge as quickly as he could with the weather doing its all to keep him from it. Over the wind’s howling, he heard Jihan’s frantic attempts to get Seunggi to take his hand, but his words fell on deaf ears. The quartermaster looked as if he hadn’t even heard him, only clutching to the ledge and staring down past it.

Talya noticed him first, her eyes growing wide. “Haeseon,” she said, and while her voice was quiet in her shock, Jihan heard them well enough. His head snapped up and his eyes met Haeseon’s, the panic in them escalating further still.

“Songbird,” he cried, “what are you doing?”

Haeseon only sent him what he hoped was a reassuring look before turning to his friend. “Seunggi!”

The quartermaster jerked out of his petrified state and looked up at him. The tears he had shed had frozen along his cheek and clumped as frost on his lashes, and he was pale as a ghost. “Hae-Haesae,” he croaked, trembling.

“Where is the flower, Seunggi?” Haeseon asked. He bit back a groan when the winds shifted and he was forced to adjust himself mid air. “Where’s Kyujang’s flower?”

Although he was so afraid, Seunggi looked down past the ledge and raised his hand to point. “D-down there,” he said. “It fell down there. I-it’s right under me, Haesae. I saw it, I s-swear I did. It’s there.”

Haeseon nodded before the quartermaster could work himself back up to his state of panic. “I’ll fetch it for you, Seunggi,” he said and attempted a smile, as if his teeth weren’t clattering without pause in the biting cold. “You know I can, right? You know I can fetch it, so go with Jihan and Talya. They will help you, and I will bring back your flower.” Seunggi stared at him for a long moment, his lips moving around nothing before he finally nodded. “Good,” Haeseon said and beat his wings once, twice. “I’ll be back soon.”

With that, he dove, folding his wings against his body to reach the place Seunggi had pointed out before the winds could reach him. It was only a few meters below the ledge, but in the ice and snow, it was near impossible to see anything at all along the slope. “Where are you?” Haeseon asked, turning left and right in search of even the faintest glimmer of gold. “Where are you, where—”

A sharp gust of air barreled against his side and threw him far off balance. He tumbled helplessly in the air for several seconds before he managed to break its momentum, spreading his wings as far as they could go in spite of the pain it caused his young feathers. A cry spilled past his gritted teeth before he could stop it, carried by the canary’s voice.

It hurts.

“Come on,” he pressed out and shook himself free of the numbness the freezing cold inflicted on him. “I have to find it, come on, only a little longer, please—”

He repeated the words over and over as he returned to the spot Seunggi had pointed out for him. Some god or spirit must’ve heard him, for as soon as he did, a gilded glint caught his eye where a layer of snow had been blown aside by the gust of wind that had caught him. With relief flooding him, he beat his tired arms until he could set his feet down around the lump of snow that held the golden flower.

As carefully as he knew how, Haeseon nudged the flower free with the tip of his wing. It fell onto his feathers, light as air, and he lifted it to his face so he could take the pin safely between his teeth. His feet slipped just as he did, but his wings were ready, bearing him even in his exhaustion.

With his remaining strength, Haeseon rose through the air towards where the others were waiting. Jihan and Talya had already helped Seunggi halfway up to the rest; the Northern Cardinal had give him one of her own picks along with the last spare. She spurred him on with a smile on her face while Jihan refused to take his hand off Seunggi’s back, unless when he was forced to dig his picks in higher to keep their pace.

“Seunggi!” Haeseon called as best he could with the pin between his teeth. He smiled when the quartermaster turned around and jutted out his chin to better show him what he carried. “I found it!”

Seunggi looked as if he might’ve passed out in relief, a tremulous chuckle spilling past his lips. He slumped slightly against the wall, his words of thanks muffled against the ice. By his side, Talya grinned up at Haeseon, and Jihan looked relieved beyond compare, some of his tension finally easing from his frame.

“I’ll give it to you up there,” Haeseon said and nodded towards where the others were waiting. His wings were trembling by now. He needed to land, lest they give in and throw him down to the base of the glacier, where no one would be able to fetch him.

Upon the quartermaster’s nod, Haeseon summoned the last of his strength and beat his wings hard to carry him up the rest of the way. The August’s crew had clumped together, with Xiao holding onto Yeonshin, who carried Haeseon’s furs, while Daewon held tightly onto Jun to keep him from slipping when he reached out to pull Haeseon out of the air.

As soon as his feet touched the ground, unstable as it was, Haeseon’s wings faded, his Blessing’s feathers drawing themselves back beneath his skin. As they did, the frost that had gathered along them settled on his skin instead, drawing icy patterns along his arms and back. He was cold, he was far colder than he had realised, shuddering violently when Jun shoved layer after layer over his shoulders, all the while holding him against his chest.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid canary,” he chided for every garb he pulled over Haeseon’s head. He was on the verge of tears as well, although he looked like he would’ve wanted to give Haeseon a proper scolding. “You’ll make yourself sick if you do things like this!”

Haeseon’s chuckle was off, his teeth still locked firmly around the golden flower. “Seunggi is safe,” he said, his voice hoarse with exhaustion. “That is all that matters.”

The pinch of Jin’s brow was more than enough of a statement of how little he agreed with Haeseon’s words, but he did not argue. Instead, he huffed out something unintelligible and concentrated on tying the binds of Haeseon’s furs, rubbing at his arms to make him warm.

When Seunggi finally reached them, he looked ready to throw himself at Haeseon and knock them off the glacier all over again. Both Talya and Jihan held onto him to keep him upright when Haeseon handed him his flower; he released both of his picks to clutch the gilded pin to his chest, fresh tears spilling down his cheeks as he blurted a jumble of thanks mixed with apologies, crying, “Thank you, Haesae, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, thank you,” against Haeseon’s chest when he hugged him as best he could with Jun holding him secure.

Protest as anyone might, but as he hushed the quartermaster and stroked his arms to calm him down, Haeseon knew his words were right. Whomever they were going to meet atop the glacier, Seunggi was safe now, and that was all that mattered.

-

wELL

THAT WAS INTENSE AND TERRIFYING

AND I HAD SO MANY THINGS TO SAY HERE BUt honestly it's only like 10pm here but i'm sTILL jetlagged to all hell x___x in korea, it's 5am and i'm dYING to go to sleep, so i'm gonna do just that bUT LEMME JUST SAY THAT NEXT WEEK HOLY SHET I'M EXCITED ABOUT NEXT WEEK'S CHAPTER OH MY GOD THERE'S GONNA BE SO MUCH OF EVERYTHING AHHHHHHHH—

GOOD NIGHT AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!


	14. chapter 13 - Thin Air, Thin Ice

//deep breath

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—

HAVE SOME MUSIC AND GRAB SOME TISSUES, WE GOING SOBBING TONIGHT;

Jonas Göbel - Empty Streets

-

Not long after the three crews had reached the top of the glacier, Talya declared they ought to raise camp and rest for the day. The sun still stood high, but she had insisted, claiming she was worn out after the ordeal that had been their climb. Haeseon knew it was a lie—the lot of them did—but he was grateful for it; not only was he tired as death, the muscles of his arms and back aching with exhaustion, but Seunggi had gone frail after what had happened amidst their ascent

Every word he spoke was an apology or a promise to do better, and the whole of the August’s crew was distraught by it. Jihan attempted to reassure him each and every time he asked for their forgiveness, saying it didn’t matter, that no one blamed him, but the quartermaster refused to listen. As soon as they reached the end of their climb and his hands were freed, he clutched Kyujang’s flower against his chest and apologised for his weakness.

It made Haeseon ache to see his friend hurt in this manner, thus he was relieved beyond compare when Talya led them towards a cluster of small hills to camp between.

As they raised their tents, Haeseon could feel the discontent from the two northern crews. They were restless, frustrated to be forced to settle without going as far as the sun would allow, but he did not care. For once, he didn’t care about Freyr’s pointed looks or even his presence; he wanted to rest and he wanted Seunggi to rest as well, and that was what they were going to do.

The captain all but forced Seunggi to eat some of the bread and salted fish Jun had brought for them; he did not want to eat, claiming he deserved none of it, so Jihan sat with him by the fire with a piece of bread in his hand until he accepted it, teary-eyed and breathless.

“I’m sorry, brother,” the quartermaster whispered after Jihan pulled him into his and Haeseon’s tent, insisting he stay with them for the night. He lay between Haeseon and the captain, clutching at his brother’s furs and refusing to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry for putting everyone at risk. I’m sorry for being so sad.”

“Shut up,” Jihan said and pulled him close, until his nose was pressed against the juncture of the captain’s neck. He was angry, Haeseon could tell, but he knew JIhan’s anger was for no one but himself, born out of ire for not being able to fight that which plagued his brother. “Don’t say that shit to me, Seunggi. Don’t apologise to me for what you can’t control.”

The quartermaster sniffled, and Haeseon tightened his embrace, hushing him gently. “It hurts,” Seunggi rasped. Truly, he sounded as if he was in pain. “It hurts to miss him so much. I knew it would be hard, but—” His breath flared with a sob and he clung tighter to his brother’s robes. “It hurts.”

When his shoulders began to tremble, Haeseon wanted to cry as well. He looked at Jihan, pleading, and Jihan looked back, more lost than Haeseon had ever seen him. “I know,” the captain murmured against Seunggi’s temple, his brow knitted into a tight frown. “I know, Gi.”

They lay like that for what could’ve been hours before the quartermaster’s breath became even and the tension lost its grip on him. The sun had long since set, shrouding them in the black of night, but even through the darkness, Haeseon could see Jihan’s eyes glimmer as he watched his brother sleep. For all the day’s struggle and exhaustion, the captain was wide awake, and so was Haeseon. Sleeping now would’ve been impossible.

“What happened to him?” he asked in a whisper, careful to not wake Seunggi. “I know he misses Kyujang and that the distance is hard on him, but this…” He did not know what to call it. Although the quartermaster had been yearning ever since they’d sailed north, what had happened amidst their climb far surpassed the rationality of simply missing someone. “It’s as if he has become sick,” Haeseon murmured, his stomach turning with the suggestion. “As if the distance has made him ill.”

Jihan was silent for a long while, uttering not a sound while he combed his fingers through Seunggi’s hair. He was contemplating, his jaw moving around the words he so hesitated to speak. There was conflict in his eyes, his frown twisted into a grimace of pain, and before long, he crumbled, heaving a deep sigh and closing his eyes. “It is not my place to tell you, songbird,” he said very quietly. “I know why Seunggi hasn’t told you, or anyone but me, but now…” He swallowed when the words stacked in his throat. “You should know. You should know why he hurts the way he does.”

Bewildered by the captain’s odd words, Haeseon tightened his arms where they were wrapped around Seunggi, the worry within him flaring. He waited while Jihan fought with himself to overcome whatever hurdle still stood in his path, hardly daring to breathe.

When the captain finally looked up at him, it was with no small amount of torment, a torment that plagued his voice when he said, “Seunggi bears a Blessing.”

Haeseon’s eyes grew wide, his lips parting with shock. He looked down at the sleeping quartermaster in his arms, struggling to grasp what his beloved had told him. Never once had Seunggi mentioned such a thing, or even given a hint of it. “Oh,” he uttered, hushed with bewilderment. “But… Seunggi has never…” Unable to find the right words, he returned his gaze to Jihan. “A Blessing?”

The captain sighed in resignation. “I don’t know its name,” he said. “I’ve tried to find it, but I’ve never seen its like in any of Daewon’s books or the scrolls and writings he kept aboard the first August before she went down in the Rabid Conflagration’s flames.” A dark look crossed his face at the mere memory. “I don’t know if it even has a name of its own. I only know what it does, and why he tells no one of it.”

Ever so gently, he stroked his brother’s cheek and smiled, however sadly, when Seunggi hummed in his sleep. “His Blessing allows him to hear his soul’s voice,” Jihan murmured. “It is an odd thing to say, but he says he can speak with it as if it was a being of its own. He knows its wills and wants, and,” he paused, struggling to find the right words, “he knows who his soul chooses to be theirs until the day they die.”

“I don’t understand,” Haeseon said, frowning when the captain chuckled.

“I don’t either,” he said, “not wholly, but that is the way Seunggi described it to me. He told me there are people in this world that his Blessing has chosen, people he is destined to meet, and when he does, he knows it, because his soul tells him they are meant to be as one.” Sighing, Jihan turned onto his back to stare up into the ceiling of the tent, frowning in thought. “When he meets one of his Blessing’s chosen, he forms a bond of sorts. He leaves part of himself with them. The whole of his being becomes tied to them, as if a string would link his heart to theirs.”

Jihan’s voice grew soft when he looked at his brother again. “He said it happened when he first met me,” he whispered, lips curling up into a tremulous smile. “Even though I was a king’s sailor, serving with those who had condemned him to death, he said he could trust me from the moment he saw me. He knew who I was to his Blessing, who had chosen me as its brother.”

In his growing bewilderment, Haeseon thought back to when Seunggi had first told him of how he had met Jihan. The quartermaster had never mentioned such a thing, only that he had pleaded with Jihan to hear his tale until he had finally grown so frustrated he had sat down to listen. There hadn’t been anything remarkable to the way Seunggi had spoken of their meeting, nothing that would’ve given it away as the work of a Blessing.

Only, Haeseon thought with a shudder, only Seunggi had killed a farmer and his son to keep Jihan safe, and he had done it without hesitating.

“He didn’t tell me for years,” the captain went on, unaware of Haeseon’s realisation. “He made it his secret until Kyujang had sailed aboard our ship for many months. Seunggi came to me in the night and told me, without explaining a thing, that Kyujang had been chosen by his Blessing to be the one Seunggi would love like no one else. He said his soul had tied itself to Kyujang’s when he’d first pulled the boy out of the cage he’d been kept in.

“He was distraught,” Jihan said quietly. “He loved Kyujang already, just like his Blessing had told him he would, and it was unbearable for him. ‘What if it’s all a lie?’ he asked me. ‘What if it’s my Blessing who loves him, not me?’. He had kept his fears to himself for years, but when his adoration for Kyujang grew stronger than what he could bear, he told me everything he knew of the nature of his Blessing, and asked me to forgive him, as if it was a bad thing that I had come to love him as my brother. As if it was his fault.”

The quartermaster stirred in his sleep, and Haeseon held him close, tears burning behind his eyes.

“At the time, I didn’t know what to say,” Jihan said. In the silence of the night, his sorrow was loud. “I knew nothing of his Blessing, and from the way he spoke, his fears sounded as if they could be true. If someone told me who I was destined to love when I first met them, would it not make things different? Would it not make me different?”

He closed his eyes and sighed, his breath misting in the cold air. “I did what I could to reassure him,” he muttered, as if he was ashamed he had not done a better job of it. “I told him Blessings cannot make him feel anything against his will. They don’t hold that kind of power. They are alive, as we are, and just as we can’t change them, they can’t change us. We can try, by force, but it would tear at both of them and hurt them beyond compare.”

Haeseon nodded before he could stop himself. He couldn’t fathom even the mere idea of forcing the canary in him into that which it did not want. It was half of him and he was half of it, but he did not have power over it, or hold command. It came to him only when he asked, and it came only as long as it wanted to.

Only once had it burst through him by force. When his mind had been lost in dread and agony, his Blessing had risen to the surface to keep him and his beloved safe. “He would’ve known if it had happened,” he whispered and felt a stirring in his chest, a flicker of anxiousness that was not his own. “He wouldn’t have been in his right mind if it had forced his hand. It would’ve hurt him.”

“Yes,” Jihan said, nodding. “I told him that as well, and eventually, he calmed down. He told me all he knew of his Blessing, and when he was done, he couldn’t meet my eyes. He stared into his hands, and he asked me if the love I held for him was truly my own.” A tremor clung to the captain’s voice, and he hid it by leaning down to press his lips against the crown of Seunggi’s hair. “I became angry,” he croaked. “I told him he was stupid for even daring to assume my feelings were anything but my own. He’s my brother and I love him, and that’s my choice, not the work of some stupid fucking Blessing.”

He exhaled sharply to dispel the remnants of the ire the mere thought of Seunggi’s question brought to him. “I was so angry,” he said hoarsely, “but when I shouted at him, he looked so… relieved. He smiled as if he had never been so glad in all his life, and he pulled me into his arms and thanked me. For what, I’m still not certain.”

In spite of the tears that fell silently down his cheeks, Haeseon smiled. He knew just what Seunggi had thanked him for; for all his frustration, there was a self-certainty and stubbornness to the captain that made it impossible to doubt him when he spoke of his own beliefs. With the whole of his crew relying on him to guide them the best way they could go, every choice Jihan made was made with complete certainty. He never suggested anything he wasn’t wholly sure of, and so Haeseon knew the relief Seunggi must’ve felt when Jihan had declared the truth of how he felt, with enough conviction to make him angry.

Haeseon didn’t break out of his thoughts until Jihan’s hand found his own, settling gently over it where it rested against Seunggi’s chest. “He told me I was the first his Blessing chose and Kyujang was the second,” he said with a small smile. “Then there’s you, songbird.”

It took Haeseon a long moment to understand what the captain meant. When he finally did, it became hard to breathe, as if his heart had swelled and pressed against his lungs, his chest burning. “Me?” he asked, his voice a thin whisper.

“You,” Jihan said. He hesitated for a moment, the smile fading from his lips as he searched for the right words. When he did speak, he was laden with what Haeseon could only recognise as guilt. “Do you remember when you first boarded this ship?” the captain asked quietly and looked away, casting down his gaze as if he was afraid. “When I—my cruelty drove you to escape from us and seek the aid of the king’s sailors.”

To see him so haunted by the actions of his past made Haeseon ache. He turned his hand so he could hold onto Jihan’s and stroked the skin over his knuckles with his thumb. “Yes,” he said softly. “I remember.”

The captain drew courage from his touch and carried on, although he still could not meet Haeseon’s eyes. “When Seunggi returned to the ship after you had been taken, he pleaded with me to save you,” he said. His face twisted into a grimace, a curse spilling past his lips. “I refused at first. Fuck, I told him if you had sought the sailors’ aid, I—then you were no longer any of my concern.”

“Jihan,” Haeseon murmured, pleading, but the captain did not look up. “Jihan.” Careful to not disturb Seunggi, Haeseon sat up on the furs. He let go of the captain’s hand so he could place both of his own against Jihan’s cheeks and raise his head until he had no choice but to meet Haeseon gaze. “It’s alright. It’s in the past. I love you now, Jihan, and that’s what matters.”

Jihan swallowed thickly and turned to press his lips against the palm of Haeseon’s hand. “I love you, songbird,” he whispered and reached up to take Haeseon’s hand in his own, as if he worried he would pull away. “Forgive me.”

Haeseon wished with all his being that Jihan could one day learn to forgive himself. “I already have,” he said as firmly as he could with his eyes burning with tears. “A hundred times over.” He waited until Jihan nodded before settling back against the furs, his hand still pressed against the captain’s cheek. “What did Seunggi tell you to change your mind?”

The captain drew a deep breath to steady himself. “The truth,” he said. “He told me you were the third of his Blessing’s chosen, his soul’s dearest friend. He told me your absence was hurting him, and I wanted to believe he was lying, but truly, he looked like he was in pain. As if he had fallen ill, with you as his only cure.”

“So you came for me,” Haeseon said, stroking Jihan’s cheek when he closed his eyes.

“Things weren’t supposed to go the way they did,” the captain said hoarsely. “Seunggi wasn’t supposed to board Son Jukan’s warship, because I knew if he did, he wouldn’t hesitate to throw himself at that bastard. He had hurt me in the past, and now he had taken you. His Blessing must’ve been beside itself with rage, and—fuck, it could’ve gone so wrong. Seunggi could’ve died, and I—”

He cut himself off and pressed his brow hard against the furs on the ground, as if the memory brought with it a palpable ache. “In my anger, I forgot all about it,” he said through gritted teeth. “I forgot who you were to him. I shoved the whip at him a-and told him to do his duty.”

His breath passed his teeth in a shrill whistle, but he persisted until he could open his eyes and look at his brother, who slept soundly against his chest. “I only realised what I was doing when he refused,” Jihan croaked. “I’ve never hated myself as much as I did then, and I tried to blame it on you, songbird. I tried to convince myself it was all your fault, but fuck, I couldn’t. You were frightened, that’s all you were and all you had done. The only thing you had done wrong was to be scared, and that was no one’s fault but mine.”

Haeseon hushed him gently through the painful throb in his own chest. He had never asked Jihan about what had gone through his head when Haeseon had first boarded the August. He had never asked and Jihan had never told him, and it made him ache to hear it now. Over a year had passed since it had happened, yet the captain spoke as if it had been only yesterday, still plagued by the actions of his past.

“I’m not frightened now, Jihan,” Haeseon crooned. “I’ll tell you every time you need me to remind you. You don’t scare me.” He carefully pressed his thumb against the captain’s jaw and waited for him to open his eyes. “You don’t scare me, Jihan,” he said again, more firmly. “Tell me you know.”

It took him a moment, but the tension slowly slipped from Jihan’s frame. “I know, songbird,” he said, sighing. For all his exhaustion to his voice, Haeseon was content with his answer. After all, the captain never declared that which he was not wholly certain of.

“Good,” Haeseon said and smiled, a smile that fell as soon as he looked down at Seunggi once more. The quartermaster looked so serene in his slumber, his face pressed against Jihan’s side and his arm slung around the captain’s waist to hold him close. Not a trace of the day’s hardships lingered, only peace, and while it made Haeseon content to see, his heart still ached in his chest. “Why has he never told me?” he asked quietly.

Jihan sniffled before he answered, his voice thick in the wake of the flare of his sorrow. “His fears are still the same as they were when he first told me of his Blessing,” he said. “He’s afraid of us questioning the sincerity of his feelings. He only loves me because of his Blessing. Without his Blessing, he would not feel the way he does now. When faced with an unnamed Blessing like Seunggi’s, people could grow to doubt him, no matter how much he would try to convince them not to.”

“But they’re not.” Haeseon’s protest fell from his lips far louder than intended. Beside him, Seunggi groaned in his sleep and pressed closer against Jihan, but did not wake. “They’re not,” Haeseon said again, whispering this time. “You and I know they’re not, and Kyujang would know it as well.”

“I know,” the captain said and nodded, “but Seunggi is still afraid. If not of the possibility that Kyujang would doubt Seunggi’s feelings, then of the thought that Kyujang would come to doubt his own.”

He squeezed Haeseon’s hand as if he could sense his overwhelming need to protest the mere thought. “To us, it’s a ridiculous thought, songbird,” he said, “but to my brother, it’s as frightening of a prospect as any he has ever known. Kyujang came to love him so fast. You’ve heard him say it, haven’t you? That Seunggi is like the sun. I imagine he loved Seunggi from the start, and therein lies his worry. Seunggi believes in his own love, and he believes in Kyujang’s, but if Kyujang knew, would he continue to believe in his own?”

“He would,” Haeseon said, not a sliver of doubt to his words. “Kyujang would never doubt his love for Seunggi, nor would he doubt Seunggi’s love for him. They—” He struggled for a moment to find the right words with which to describe the bond his two friend shared. “They love so fiercely, it’s as if they wouldn’t know how to breathe without one another. If Kyujang knew, it would only make him happy to know he’s truly destined to be with Seunggi.” He looked at Jihan, daring him to argue. “It would only make him love Seunggi more.”

For the first time that night, the smile on Jihan’s lips was one of content. “I think so, too,” he murmured. “Only my foolish little brother would worry so much.” He pulled Seunggi more firmly against himself and pressed his lips against the top of his head. “So foolish.”

The captain remained like that for a long moment, reveling in his brother’s presence alone before peering up at Haeseon once more. “His Blessing is a beautiful thing, songbird,” he said solemnly, “but painful in ways I can’t imagine. He needs the people his Blessing has chosen. He depends on them. After what happened during the climb, he said he would try harder to not be so burdened by his distance from Kyujang, but how could he do that? Seunggi is not whole without him. Even if he tried, how could he be whole all on his own?”

“We’ll help him,” Haeseon said immediately, even though he did not know how. He couldn’t even begin to fathom how the separation must’ve felt for Seunggi, but it made him cold as ice to imagine it as being separated from his own Blessing. To have a piece of who he was stripped away from his person was a dreadful thought, and he did not want his friend to hurt in such a way. “We’ll help him,” he said again, determined in spite of his lack of answers. “Until Kyujang returns and he can be whole again, we… we will be enough. We can give him enough of ourselves to ease his pain.”

His words made little sense even to himself, but Jihan was content. As gentle as a thought it was, to be able to help Seunggi in such a manner, it bore no grounds for success, yet even so, the captain hummed in agreement and squeezed Haeseon’s hand. Satisfied with his silent answer, Haeseon returned his grip before letting go in favour of burying his hand in the quartermaster’s hair and gently brushing the strands away from his face. “His Blessing should have a name,” he whispered absently. “All Blessing should have a name.”

“It should,” Jihan agreed, “but what would you name a Blessing like this one? For you and me, it was easy enough for the scholars who first wrote about them to give them their name, but Seunggi’s…” He heaved a soft sigh. “The Blessing of Hearts is already one of its own, as is the Blessing of Love. There is even a Blessing of Bonds.”

“What of a Blessing of Souls?” Haeseon asked. “If Seunggi’s Blessing allows him to hear the voice of his soul, then there would be no better name for it.”

The captain emitted a noise of thought, his tiredness rising fast to the surface. “There is no Blessing of Souls,” he said.

“Then there is one now,” Haeseon said with finality, unfazed by the chuckle Jihan emitted. “One day, Daewon can write the very first record of it, and of Seunggi as its first and only bearer.” He smiled down at the quartermaster and settled properly against his back, finally at peace. “I’ll wait for him,” he murmured against the furs of Seunggi’s collar. “Until he’s ready to tell me, I will wait.”

“Thank you, songbird,” Jihan said, sounding as if he was on the brink of sleep. “Thank you for not doubting him.”

In that moment, Haeseon wanted to tell him of his ear. He hated the secret he kept from his beloved and from his friend, his soul’s friend, and he wanted to tell them. He parted his lips, but just as quickly as his courage had come, it left him. It would’ve been too much all at once, with all three of them left exhausted in the wake of the climb and the emotions left by Seunggi’s fit of panic.

It was not the right time, so Haeseon closed his lips and pressed his face against the quartermaster’s collar, and promised to tell them next time they were at peace.

-

True to his word, when they set out the following morning, Haeseon never once left Seunggi’s side. He held his hand as they walked through the snow and spoke to him about whatever came to mind. It took the quartermaster a while to join his pace, made nervous and quiet after what had happened during the climb, but when Haeseon refused to let him go, Seunggi soon recovered some of his usual cheeriness. His voice remained hushed when he spoke, but he grinned behind his mask when Haeseon tripped and fell face first into the snow.

None of the others mentioned the incident of the climb. On the contrary, everyone of the August’s crew threw warning glares at any of the other pirates whenever they looked Seunggi’s way. Haeseon did it as well; when he noticed Freyr staring at the two of them from the head of their party, he rose to the challenge and held the boy’s gaze until he looked away again.

Jihan’s eyes remained on the back of Freyr’s head long after he had turned, cold as the ice around them, and Haeseon said nothing to dissuade him.

On the fourth day of their climb, they emerged from their uneven grounds, caverns, and sloping walls to a wide field of ice atop the glacier. It spread out far before them, stretching hundreds of meters in every direction, so far Haeseon could barely see its end. Under the clear sky and the sun’s warm rays, the snow glittered like gems.

“How beautiful,” Seunggi said in a voice of awe. “It looks like a white sea.”

While the others murmured their agreement, Yeonshin scoffed, his breath misting in the biting cold. “Yes, yes, very pretty,” he said, scowling. His cheeks were red and pale all at once, the northern chill having sunk deep into his skin and chilled him from within. “If the sun could provide any heat whatsoever, it would be even lovelier.”

At the head of their group, Talya laughed and turned to send the surgeon an amused look from over her shoulder. She looked cold as well, frost clinging to every lash that framed her eyes, but whilst Yeonshin—and Jihan, who looked just about murderous in his discomfort—likely would’ve preferred the glacier to melt away in its entirety as long as it meant the sun’s rays would grow warm, the Northern Cardinal seemed utterly at peace, cheery and content with her hair stiff with frost.

It was a wondrous thing, to walk out onto the wide field of ice. The sun cast their shadows on the snow, untouched before their heavy footsteps; not even an animal seemed to have crossed this field since the snows had settled, so smooth its surface was. Loathe to disturb it any further, Haeseon and Seunggi followed in Jihan’s footsteps, quite literally; they stepped only where he had stepped before, allowing themselves a moment of childlike glee in the little game they’d made for themselves.

When they had walked some two hundred meters from their entrance to the field, the sun was shrouded behind a mass of dark clouds. They gathered over the field as if out of nowhere, with nary a shift in the wind to bring them together above the glacier.

The abruptness of the weather’s change made Haeseon forget his cheeriness. He stumbled in his steps when he looked up, frowning at the cluster of dark clouds. There was an oddity to their spread; the mass seemed to grow from the inside out rather than clump together by chance, as if the very center of the clouds was what gave birth to the others.

“Are you alright, songbird?” Jihan asked, having noticed his shift in mood.

“I don’t know,” Haeseon said, still frowning. Slowly, the winds around them began to pick up their pace, a premonition of the storm the clouds undoubtedly brought with them. “The weather is odd.”

His concern was lost on Jun, who merely shuddered and tucked his hands underneath the folds of his arms. “I hope we make it across before the storm starts up,” he said and pushed on, leaving Haeseon to struggle with his worries.

“Songbird,” Jihan said again. He spoke Haeseon’s name like a secret question, as if to ask that which he knew Haeseon did not want to say out loud.

Reluctantly, Haeseon tore his eyes away from the sky and attempted a reassuring smile. “I’m certain it’s nothing,” he said and followed after his beloved, still holding firmly onto Seunggi’s hand. “Only the canary in me dreading the storm.”

They resumed their trek, but the further they walked, the harsher the winds became and the more anxious Haeseon became. He couldn’t explain why, but the storm felt unnatural to him. The air itself was wrong for this kind of weather, its pressure too heavy to form a mass of clouds such as this. It made him think of the Rune of the Storm, and the scars along his neck ached with its memories.

When the first flakes of snow began to fall, he couldn’t keep his silence any longer. “There’s something wrong,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the winds. Around him, the August’s crew came to a halt, and at the head of their party, Talya stopped as well, turning his way in curiosity. “There’s something—we shouldn’t be here.”

“What’s wrong, Haesae?” Seunggi asked, clutching at his hand, which had began to tremble. “Your hands…”

“We shouldn’t be here,” Haeseon said again. The canary in him was beside itself with anxiousness, filling him with a dread that made him rub at the skin of his arms as if it would get rid of the ominous sensation.

“Haeseon.” Talya’s voice gave Haeseon relief, one that faded the instant he turned and saw Freyr trailing after his mother, a sneer twisting his features as he looked at Haeseon. “What is wrong, darling Haeseon?” the Northern Cardinal asked when she stepped close enough to not have to shout over the winds. “Are you ill?”

Freyr’s presence made the words that much harder to speak, but Haeseon needed his friend to understand. “The storm,” he said and threw a fretful glance towards the dark skies. “It’s not natural, Talya. I don’t know how, I can’t explain it, but it’s—” He shook his head and took a step backwards. “We should go back. We shouldn’t be here.”

Worry knitted Talya’s brow, but Freyr raised his voice before she could so much as part her lips to reply. “You really are too afraid, little bird,” he said with no small amount of mockery coating his words. “If you cower at the prospect of a winter storm, perhaps you should’ve stayed at your ship, where your paranoia could remain undisturbed.” He lips curled up into a spiteful smirk when some of his crew chuckled. “Your lack of trust in Talya’s decisions is pitiful, and we don’t have time for—”

“Pardon me, Sabelsson,” Jihan interrupted with no small amount of ire, “but what the fuck is your problem?”

Haeseon turned quickly and placed a hand on the captain’s shoulder in an attempt to calm him. “Jihan,” he said, his nervousness flaring, “you don’t have to—”

“No, I think this is precisely what I have to do.” The rumble of the storm above them paled in comparison to that of Jihan’s voice and the aggravated scowl that twisted his face. “I’m very curious as to why this bastard keeps behaving the way he does,” he said loudly and jerked his jaw towards Freyr, who had gone very quiet at the captain’s outburst. “He struts around like some fucking king amongst us lowly peasants, scoffing and rolling his eyes at everything the songbird says, and you,” he turned to Talya, who stared back at him as if he had grown a second head, “you treat it as if it’s some joke. As if your son’s only teasing when it is so fucking obvious he’s doing everything he can to scorn the songbird.”

“Jihan,” Haeseon pleaded when the storm grew harsher still. He tugged at the captain’s arm, but Jihan’s anger was far fiercer then. “Jihan, this is not the time.”

“I’d expect your husband to not give two shits,” he went on, “but you, you call yourself the songbird’s friend. You act as if you love him like your own, yet you watch your son belittle him and say nothing!”

Haeseon pretended as if he couldn’t feel Talya’s gaze burning into the back of his head. This was not how he had wanted to speak with her about Freyr’s behaviour; in fact, this was exactly what he hadn’t wanted. He hadn’t wanted a fight or an argument, and he certainly hadn’t wanted Jihan to turn his anger on the Northern Cardinal.

While he clutched at the captain’s sleeve in an attempt to distract him, the others rose to Jihan’s side as if they were a defensive wall, the lot of them throwing dark looks either at Freyr or Talya. None of them had any thought of dissuading Jihan, least of all Seunggi, who looked like he was only moments away from reaching for the thin sword at his waist.

“That piece of shit you call your son looks so smug even now,” Jihan spat, his voice harsh with contempt. “He looks like this is what he’s wanted all along, and I’ve just about fucking had it with his attitude!”

In spite of the storm, the captain’s voice echoed across the white field, loud like a clap of thunder. It carried on the howling wind, kept alive by Talya’s utter lack of a reply. She stood silent as a crypt, her gaze slowly shifting from Haeseon to Jihan and back again, as if she was grasping for whatever it was she had missed that had led to the captain’s outburst.

Behind her, Freyr’s lips curled into the ghost of a smirk, and at his side, Qasim closed his eyes and sighed in resignation.

When Talya finally found her words, it was Haeseon she turned to. “Haeseon,” she said. There was a plea to her voice, one that made it impossible for him to meet her eyes, rendered useless as he was by his guilt and dread for the storm raging around them. “Haeseon, please, I need to—”

The rest of her words were lost in a thunderous rumble, a sound as if the very earth had split open. Haeseon jerked back out of sheer instinct, only to lose his balance and fall when the glacier was shaken by an unseen quake. With his hands pressed flat against the ice, Haeseon could feel the tremor through the ice itself, and before he could raise his voice in warning, the wide field split apart with a deafening crack.

It was as if an earthquake had rushed through the glacier, tearing it open from the inside out. Screams rose from all around Haeseon, two dozen pirates shouting, “Get back!” all at once and scrambling through the snow to find a safe place. Disoriented, Haeseon clung to Seunggi’s hand as the quartermaster attempted to pull him upright, his eyes wide with dread as he watched the ice crack right by Talya’s feet, the makings of a ravine carving itself open to force her away from the August’s crew.

“Retreat!” Jihan shouted over the chaos, pointing towards where they’d come from. “Retreat, we have to get away from this field now!” He turned to help Seunggi pull Haeseon upright, cursing as another quake went through the glacier and nearly threw him off balance. “Snap out of it, songbird, we have to go! We have to get to safe ground before this entire field collapses in on itself, so—”

The rest of his words went unspoken, his frame going rigid when he looked beyond Haeseon’s shoulder. Startled by his sudden stiffness, Haeseon turned as well, only to have all the blood in his veins go cold at the sight of four cloaked strangers standing amidst their path to safety. They did not move, only holding their ground at the edge of the storm, unflinching in the face of three pirate crews.

“Jihan.” 

The captain turned sharply upon Yeonshin’s harsh whisper, another curse spilling from his lips when he saw another stranger step out of the storm far to their right, immediately followed by another. “This is bad,” Jihan hissed, clutching hard onto Haeseon’s arm. “This is really fucking bad.”

One by one, they appeared from the shrouds of the storm, until the three crews were surrounded on all ends. They held their distance, but there were sixty of them at least, each and every one of them armed with sword or axe. Their silence had the dread in Haeseon’s chest escalating until he could barely breathe, pounding hard in his throat as he turned this way and that in search of an opening, any at all, through which they could escape.

In his searching, he noticed one of the strangers stood with his hand raised towards the skies, moving them in circles as if weaving some kind of spell. With a wave of nausea, Haeseon realised they must’ve summoned the storm, which meant they’d been watching the three crews for the better half of an hour before launching their ambush.

I should’ve said something, he thought, the beat of his heart dull and loud in his ears. I should’ve made us all turn back.

All around him, the pirates drew their weapons in preparation for the battle to come, every last one of them made anxious by the strangers’ lack of assault. With no one leading an attack, the pirates were lost for where to turn or charge, reluctant to step out onto the crumbling glacier for fear they’d fall into one of the ravines.

No one in the field of ice moved to charge until she arrived.

She walked out of the storm to join the four strangers that severed the August’s path to safety. They moved aside to let her pass, bowing low as they went, as if they were in the presence of a queen of royal blood. Her eyes were green as emeralds and her hair wild and untamed, and beneath the mask she had worn to protect herself from the cold in the lone town of Svalbard, her smile was twisted and scarred and spilling a dreadful laughter that drowned even the howling of the wind. “Talya Sabelsdottír!” she cried, as if it was a sentence, a judgement.

A promise of death by she who was its goddess, carried by the roars of her army of the dead.

-

well.

tHAT’S NOT VERY GOOD. THAT’S REALLY NOT VERY GOOD.

boi are they screwed now. ahhhhhH—

fuck you freyr haeseon was fucking right the whole time you asshole. tELL HIM JIHAN RIP HIM A GODDAMN NEW ONE THAT BASTARD DESERVES A GOOD WHOOPIN'

but omg haeseon and seunggi are literally soulmates :((( and seunggi and jihan, and seunggi and kyujang i’m sO SAD :(((((

AND. AND ALL OF YOU WHO WANTED TO HAVE A JIHAN POV OF tStS, WELL, LEMME TELL YA IT WOULDN'T BE A VERY FLUFFY READ. YOU GET A SNIPPET OF IT HERE, WITH WHAT HE WAS THINKING WHEN HAESEON FIRST BOARDED THE AUGUST, AND IT'S NOT THE NICEST OF THINGS, OKAY?

:(( protecc jihan 2k19 

ALSO quick thing i forgot to mention in the last chapter but like they all have their weapons with them sjhdjshds they’re going to fight a whole goddess of course they’d bring their weapons i just kinda forgot to write it :D:D::D

we gon' die next week hoo boi we gon' diE


	15. chapter 14 - Hel

oKAY I'M BACK FROM THE HOSPITAL AND I'M DOING A LOT BETTER AND THIS CHAPTER IS SO STRESSFUL AND JUST U G H

but ay on the flip side i got music for y'all again i feel like it's been a long time since i've provided you with proper reading music!!

Brand X Music - Last Chance 

Two Steps From Hell - Freedom Fighters 

ENJOY

-

As soon as Talya's name fell from Hel's lips, chaos broke out amongst the three pirate crews.

“Back away!” Jihan barked at his crew, one hand reaching out to take hold of Seunggi’s and pull him towards himself while the other went for one of the daggers at his hip. There was panic in his voice, no doubt the same panic that flooded Haeseon’s chest at the sudden appearance of she who was the goddess of death. “Fuck, back away!”

His command fell at the same time as Xiao took his Blessing’s form and Talya took hers, the changing tearing through her robes under the growth of her muscles. She landed heavily on the ice and sprang forward to stand at the head of her crew, where she released a thunderous roar, one her men echoed with a choir of their own, crying out for the battle to come.

She looked as if she might've charged at the goddess of death right then and there, a thought that had Haeseon going cold as ice. “Talya, you can't—”

“Ahrim!”

Freyr's voice cut him off and made him turn, just in time to see the boy take hold of the hand the Eastern girl offered him. At once, she cried out as if she was in pain and curled in on herself while Freyr's face twisted into a grimace, the whole of his body strung taut as he took command of Ahrim's Blessing and tore it out of her.

“Stop it,” Haeseon whispered, struck with horror by the act, but his voice was lost in the storm and the screams rising all around him. “Stop it.”

Freyr did not stop, not until Ahrim emitted a pitiful whimper and fell to her knees in the snow, her hand slipping out of his grip. She looked as if the life had been drained from her veins, barely responsive at all when two of Freyr’s crew came rushing over to help her stand and pull her as far away from their target as possible.

With a sharp sound like a growl, Freyr thrust his hand against his chest and plunged it past his skin, his ribs and lungs caving in on themselves underneath his touch. He ground his teeth and pulled, and instead of blood and bones, the boy drew a black spear out of his own body.

A rush of nausea hit Haeseon with the force of a punch, the canary in him thrashing in dread.

“What the fuck,” Yeonshin hissed, having followed the display with equal contempt. “What the fuck did he—”

“Songbird!”

Jihan’s voice tore the two of them out of their state of petrification. Haeseon turned sharply, first to look at the captain and then behind themselves, where Hel had began her approach. She walked slowly through the howling storm, and even without the two men at her side, one tall and gangly and clad in black, the other built like a mountain, she would’ve made the very picture of horror.

“Take her!” she commanded and pointed at Talya, who snarled in reply when those of Hel’s followers who had surrounded them broke away from their circle to charge. As soon as they did, more and more men clad in dark robes stepped out of the storm to take their place to ensure the wall would remain intact and prevent even a single soul from escaping.

“How many of them are there?!” Jun asked loudly, stumbling in his retreat as he twisted his head to look around every which way he could. At least four dozen had made up the first circle, but already, there were twice as many, and more and more came for every moment that passed.

“We have to get the fuck away from that thing!” Jihan shouted and pointed at Hel with his dagger. Her first line of soldiers were nearly upon them, charging with axe and spear raised to strike. “Come on, run!”

No one in his crew needed to be told twice, abandoning any thoughts of combat for the prospect of escape. Even Talya followed suit, however reluctantly, growling at the goddess of death before turning to herd her crew towards the other side of the open field. Freyr followed her, although his reluctance was clear, and then the lot of them were running. They struggled to bypass the cracks in the glacier left by the earlier quakes, far from willing to take a diversion and head straight towards the charging soldiers.

Behind them, Hel made no effort to run, as if she knew they would not escape, no matter how hard they’d try.

The soldiers of the dead that had stood behind them were biggest in number, and it was them they clashed with first. Talya thundered past the lot of them to lead their charge; she threw herself at the one who reached them first, unafraid of the axe he wielded as she leaped right at him and buried her enormous fangs into his neck. He screamed, blood bursting from his lips, and she used the momentum of his fall to charge right at the next one and do the same again.

“Those with bows or pistols, aim for those flanking us!” Jihan shouted before he clashed with another soldier, parrying his spear with the dagger he held in his right hand while his left drew the other and buried it in the man’s abdomen. He did not have to finish the job; Seunggi did it for him, by running his sword through the soldier’s throat. “We have to keep moving!”

Only then did Haeseon realise that he himself bore a weapon, his dread having made him forget all about the bow strapped over his chest. He gritted his teeth and made himself break out of his fear, quickly taking his weapon in hand and drawing an arrow from the quiver tied to his waist. Easy, he told himself to stave off the trembling of his hands before it could come to him. He slowed his steps just enough to take aim at one of the soldiers charging their way and fire, the tip of his arrow piercing through the man’s thigh.

Without lingering to watch him fall, Haeseon turned to catch up with the others. Most of the pirates of the three crews preferred close combat over ranged; aside from Freyr himself, who swung his spear with enough force to take a soldier’s head clean off his shoulders, the majority of his crew followed suit, even though the lot of them wielded Blessings. One of them looked like he had turned to stone, his skin grey and hard enough to withstand a cleave of an axe directly to his neck, while another spewed black liquid from her mouth and used it to blind those closest to her before impaling them with her sword.

One of them had taken the shape of a hulking white bear nearly twice the size of Xiao’s Blessing’s form, crushing a soldier against the ice beneath its massive front paws.

Haeseon fell in next to Yeonshin just as the surgeon fired one of his pistols. Unlike Haeseon, he took no issue with killing; his bullet hit its mark in the eye, spraying blood at the soldier who’d come up after him. “Fuck, I wish Lucya was here,” Yeonshin said, struggling to push more bullets into his weapon while running through the snow. “She’d have the lot of them dead already.”

Even though it was a grim thought, Haeseon wished the same. Not only was the sniper fiercely efficient with her crossbow, but she was of the North as well. She would’ve fared far better than any of them did now on this battlefield.

With his heart beating hard in his ears, Haeseon left Yeonshin’s side to join Jun, who stood amidst those fighting, eyes wide with as he turned again and again in attempt to see everything around them at once. The cook bore no weapons—he had said it to Haeseon once many months ago, that he had made the choice to not fight—and it left him vulnerable now, when the enemy was coming at them from all sides. “Stay behind me, Jun,” Haeseon said and nocked another arrow, searching for someone to cripple. “Don’t stray too close to those fighting.”

Jun only nodded and latched onto the back of Haeseon’s furs with one hand to ensure he wouldn’t lose him in the battle. The three crews kept moving further out into the open field, stumbling over the bodies of the soldiers who either stood in their way or chased them down. It seemed a fruitless goal; the circle that surrounded them grew thicker still, with even more soldiers clad in black emerging one after the other to simply stand there and wait while their master drew nearer to her target.

Hel was barely a dozen meters away when the last soldier in their path fell. “Go!” Jihan barked, a command every last one of them was eager to follow now. With Talya leading their way, they took off towards the back of the circle with every intention to fight their way through before the goddess of death could reach them. Haeseon took hold of Jun’s hand and pulled him along, the thought of protecting the cook the only thing still keeping his own dread at bay.

They had only made it a few meters when another tremor went through the glacier, a dreadful rumble drowning out the howling of the winds. The ground beneath their feet quaked and shook, and then another crack, the biggest one yet, split the ice right in the middle of the pirate crews.

If not for Jun’s grip on his hand, Haeseon might’ve fallen right into the ravine. Quick as a serpent, the cook tightened his hold and yanked him backwards with so much force the two of them lost their balance and fell backwards into the snow. All around them, people screamed in distress, calling each other’s names and cursing. Haeseon groaned, his head throbbing where he’d smacked it against the ice, and pushed himself upright only to have his heart plunge to the pits of his stomach.

The vast majority of the three crews stood at the other side of the ravine, which gaped nearly three meters wide between them. It was an impossible jump to make, something Talya did not seem to want to comprehend, what with how she struggled against those of her crew who held her back from attempting to leap over to Haeseon’s side. Jihan stood at the very edge, his expression twisted with sheer horror as he shouted Haeseon’s name, his and Seunggi’s and so many others of his crew who had been left to the mercy of the goddess of death.

“Move, Haesae!”

Someone grabbed onto Haeseon’s sleeve and pulled him upright and into a run before he could properly find his balance. Numb with dread, he turned his head and found Hel not far behind, gleeful with amusement at how easy her job had been made. “We have to circle the ravine!” Yeonshin shouted, his voice shrill with fear. Next to him, Jun ran as fast as he could while Xiao stuck to his side in his Blessing’s form, and behind the lot of them, Hisashi was struggling to keep up, the robes of his left sleeve torn open and bleeding. Seunggi was pulling Haeseon along, sword still in hand. Freyr had discarded his spear in favour of carrying Ahrim in his arms as they ran, flanked by one of his own men and two of Talya’s crew.

There were eleven of them and three of the enemy at their heel, but none of them were foolish enough to imagine they stood a chance even in numbers.

That is, until the men from Talya’s crew decided to buy them whatever precious seconds they could. With a quick salute to Freyr spoken in words Haeseon could not understand, they broke from their path and turned the opposite way, shouting as they charged at the goddess of death.

“Don’t!” Haeseon cried and threw out his hand as if he could’ve stopped them even if he’d reached. They went without faltering, one clashing with the humongous man the other charged right at Hel.

It was terrifying to watch.

She caught the pirate’s wrist in her hand, and in an instant, he began to scream. The sword fell from his hand and his muscular form crumbled in whatever agony had overtaken him. He clawed at his chest, and all she did was hold him. She only held his arm in a grip that he should’ve been able to break out of with ease. She only held him, but in a matter of seconds, he fell against the ice, his voice gone and his life along with it.

If not for Seunggi pulling him along, Haeseon would’ve stopped, petrified by sheer terror at the sight. In the face of it, he barely noticed when the monstrous man tore the other northern pirate apart with his bare hands, spraying blood all over the snow. A dimly familiar voice was screaming somewhere to his left, but it was numb to his ears. He could barely recall how to breathe, an ability he lost completely when Hel looked up from the pirate and met Haeseon’s eyes.

The goddess of death smiled at him, and with a rush of crippling ice, Haeseon remembered how she had touched him when they had met in the little town on Svalbard’s coast. She had smiled at him then as well and patted his shoulder in a friendly manner with the same hand that had just torn away someone’s life with nothing but a touch.

The realisation that his own life could’ve ended in that moment had nausea bursting into Haeseon’s stomach, so fiercely he had to smack a hand to his mouth to keep it in. His horror made Hel laugh, the sound full of amusement and spite, and when she sobered up again, she and her henchmen went to resume their pursuit.

As soon as she took the first step, however, the ice quaked again, this time hard enough to throw even her off balance. Half of the running pirates lost their footing and fell into the snow, with Haeseon barely managing to keep his footing by clinging to Seunggi, who in turn buried his sword halfway into the ground for support. It was the strongest tremor yet, as if something was moving within the very ice itself, thrashing and twisting for freedom.

Hel staggered backwards, her glee now gone in favour of her annoyance. She barked out an order at the man to her right, the one who was thin as a reed, but he appeared to have no answer for her, for the tremors did not cease when she wanted them to.

“If this glacier collapses in on itself, we’re all going to fucking die!” Yeonshin had to scream to be heard over the creaking of the ice, and while Haeseon wanted to dismiss his words as ridiculous, the sheer magnitude of the quakes made them seem far more possible than he would’ve liked.

When the ice finally ceased to tremble, the glacier settled into complete and utter silence. For a moment, Haeseon wondered if he had gone wholly deaf. There was not a voice to be heard; even the wind had gone quiet, the snow now falling in peace. It was unnatural and made the hairs along his arms stand on edge even in the warmth of his countless robes and furs.

Suddenly, a sound like a slow drum rose to his ears. It was distant yet close all at once, as if it was a foreign heartbeat thrumming both within himself and outside. Haeseon looked around, his breath passing his lips in sharp exhales as he searched for the source. It was a familiar sound, yet he could not fathom where he had heard it, or if it had been only a figment of his imagination.

Who are you? he asked inwardly, and felt as if the question was meant for himself as well. Where are you?

When his eyes landed on Hel, the sound vanished and brought reality barreling back against his chest. She rose to her feet, the smile returning to her lips now that the glacier was peaceful once more. Chuckling, she ran a hand through her wild hair and parted her lips. To say what, Haeseon would not know; as soon as she did, the ice burst open with a deafening crash as if a bomb had gone off inside it.

The footing was torn away from beneath Haeseon’s feet, the ravine beside them splitting open further to swallow him and everyone he’d been running with. They fell, weightless and screaming, and Haeseon attempted to change into his Blessing’s form, but the sleeves of his robes hindered his feathers’ growth. He cursed and turned his head as best he could midair, seeing Seunggi and Yeonshin and Jun and several more plummeting into the glacier's midst along with him.

With the wind howling in his ears, he could barely hear someone call his name from far above him, but before he could so much as turn his head, he crashed hard against a ridge in the ice, the blow spreading throughout his body until it reached his head and pulled him into black nothingness.

-

well

tHAT WAS STRESSFULJHDS

jshdjsdh i’m not sure if y’all made the connection, but the woman freyr and haeseon met in svalbard? yeh, that was hel :D i tried to make it more obvious with her description in the final paragraphs in the last chapter, you know, her eye color and hair, and the fact that she had worn a mask to protect herself from the cold, just like the woman they’d met in svalbard’s town~~

So……. haeseon basically told hel that “hey you know that woman you’ve sworn to kill? she’s here lol i’m her friend” OOPS THAT’S A BIG OOPS RIGHT THEREJSHDJSHD

AND DOESN'T SHE SEEM LIKE A LOVELY PERSON JUST CASUALLY KILLING A VIKING-LIKE PIRATE BY TOUCHING HIM THAT'S SO GREAT THIS IS GONNA BE A GREAT VILLAIN TO DEAL WITH YAY

^all sarcasm

so now haeseon and seunggi and jun and yeonshin and a couple more people are trapped in a ravine that's god knows how many meters deep and it's freezing cold and they're injured

YAY

NEXT WEEK'S CHAPTER IS GONNA BE G R E A T

lmao until then~


	16. chapter 15 - Cold

so, um, just so y'all know, this chapter hURTS

painful music:

BrunuhVille - Black Heart 

-

“Hae… on… nary… seon.”

The darkness’ grip on his mind and body slackened upon the call of his name, but it hung heavy over him all the same. A groan spilled from his lips, or at least he thought it did; he felt the vibrations in his throat, but the sound did not quite reach his ears. He tried to raise his head and failed, his neck straining with the effort before he gave up again, slumping back against the cold ground.

“Wake up, Haeseon,” the voice murmured again. It was clearer to his ears now, accompanied by a firm touch to his shoulder and a squeeze through his many layers of furs. “I know you can hear me, canary. Can you try to open your eyes for me?”

Haeseon groaned again, this time loudly enough for himself to hear. Every inch of him was aching, the throbbing worst in his right hand and head. His eyelids weighed a tonne each at least, but with the hushed encouragement from the familiar voice above him, he slowly managed to dispel the weight of the darkness and pry them open.

He shut them immediately, blinded by the light of his surroundings. It made him dizzy even though he was lying down; a dull throbbing of his head rose to the surface and made him want to be pulled back under. The voice did not let him, however, hushing him softly when he emitted a whine of a sound. “Come now,” it said. Strong hands slid beneath his head and neck and coaxed him into raising from the ground. “Yeonshin needs to have a look at you, canary.”

It was slow, but eventually Haeseon managed to open his eyes properly against the light, which, he realised, wasn’t all that strong to begin with. There was no sun, only blue walls of ice and snow rising all around him. His vision refused to focus, small specks dancing along its edges, but when he looked up, he recognised Jun all the same. “J’n,” he slurred. His throat felt thick and dry all at once. “Jun.”

“There you are,” the cook said and offered him a small smile, forced as it was. “It’s me, canary. Can you sit up?”

Although Haeseon looked at him all the while he spoke, it took Jun’s question several seconds to manifest in his mind. “Yes,” he said when he understood and attempted to push himself upright, only to wince when he leaned on his right arm. “M-my arm…”

“Easy.” Jun pulled him against his side, taking half of his weight while he struggled to rise. “Yeonshin,” he called softly and turned away. “His right arm is hurting.”

A hissed curse sounded from some ways to their right, and a few moments later, the surgeon was kneeling in front of Haeseon, agitation and worry furrowing his brow. “Can you move it?” he asked and placed a careful hand on his shoulder.

Haeseon closed his eyes and tried. It hurt—the clearer his mind became, the more the whole of his body seemed to ache—but the limb moved on his command, trembling with the effort it took. “Hurts,” he mumbled. There were more words he’d intended to speak, but they were lost somewhere between his mind and his tongue.

“I know,” Yeonshin said and moved his hands to cradle his arm so he could let it go limp again. “If you can move it, it’s likely a sprain. That’s good.”

“I think he’s concussed as well,” Jun said quietly, one hand still pressed against Haeseon’s neck. There were other voices around them, ones Haeseon couldn’t quite recognise even though the cook spoke lowly, a quiet murmur next to Haeseon’s ear. “He can’t concentrate properly, and he keeps closing his eyes as if the light hurts.”

It wasn’t until Jun said it that Haeseon realised his eyes were indeed closed. Frowning at himself, he opened them again and squinted through the blur of his vision to look at Yeonshin, who sat on the icy ground in front of him. The surgeon was frowning as well, his own gaze flickering quickly between Haeseon’s eyes. “Do you feel nauseous, Haeseon?” he asked.

Haeseon swallowed against the thickness in his throat and immediately felt the lump make a brave attempt at jumping up to the back of his mouth. “A little,” he said and closed his eyes again.

“Is there anything off with your ears?” the surgeon pressed. “Your vision?”

A frown marred Haeseon’s brow at that. There was something off with his ears. One was buzzing slightly, as if it was jammed with cotton, and the other heard nothing at all. He parted his lips to say as much, but stopped himself halfway; he wasn’t supposed to say it. No one was supposed to know. “My ears ‘re fine,” he slurred and tried to look around to not have to meet Yeonshin’s gaze. There were shapes of people all around him, but it took him several seconds to recognise any one of them. “My eyes… my eyes are slow.”

Yeonshin heaved a quiet sigh at that and nodded. “Definitely a concussion,” he muttered. He reached up to press a hand against his face for a moment. “This is just great…”

Haeseon took his time in looking around, struggling to concentrate on what he was seeing. There was a big, hulking shape sitting upright against a wall of ice, rubbing at its face with a great paw. Xiao, Haeseon thought, knowing the carpenter’s Blessing’s bear anywhere. By his side sat a man with long hair and the sheath of a sword in his lap, his head tipped back against the wall. Hisashi was cradling his right side, the robes soaked through with blood, and he was paler than usual.

Someone was sitting between the bear’s legs, pressed up against the fur of his stomach for warmth. Their hair was golden like the sun, and it made Haeseon smile in spite of himself. “Seunggi,” he said and closed his eyes when the brightness became too much.

The voices became unclear for a moment. Haeseon might’ve drifted off; he did not look up again until he heard a rustle of clothes from right in front of him. Yeonshin was being shooed away from where he had kneeled so someone else could take his place. “Haesae,” the quartermaster whispered, so close Haeseon could feel his breath on his cheek. “Haesae, are you alright?”

“Seunggi,” Haeseon said again and smiled. His head felt exceptionally heavy. He reached out and grabbed at his friend’s furs, peering up at him. “Are you… ‘re you hurting?”

Seunggi snorted, as if it was a ridiculous question to ask. He still wore his mask, but his smile was clear all the same. “I asked you first,” he said. There was a bruise blossoming over the side of his face and blood matting his hair. He was sitting oddly as well, and with a rush of cold, Haeseon realised his leg was broken. “Hey.” The quartermaster took Haeseon’s face in his hands and made him look up before he could descend into a fit of dread. “‘M alright, Haesae,” he said firmly. “We were all a bit hurt in the fall, but we’re alright.”

The memory of the fall came to him slowly. The battle, the quakes in the glacier, and the ravine that had opened up beneath their feet. “Jihan,” he croaked and looked around, the chill in his veins refusing to retreat. The ache in his head grew stronger. “Jihan, where is—Hel, what happened to—what happened?”

“Easy, canary,” Jun murmured against the top of his head and pressed his lips there. “We’re safe. No one can reach us here. We don’t know what happened to the others, but,” he squeezed Haeseon’s neck when he drew a quivering breath, “Jihan is with Talya. Jihan and Daewon and everyone else, they’re with Talya. She will keep them safe, you know she will.”

Relief made him close his eyes again and he leaned more heavily against the cook’s side. “‘S good,” he slurred. He was quiet for a moment, chasing a thought to voice. “Where are we?”

“Inside the glacier,” Yeonshin said. He settled next to Seunggi and tore pieces of cloth out of his own robes to fashion bandages for Haeseon’s arm. “I don’t know how far we fell, but there is nothing but ice around us. We tried to find a way out, but…” His voice tapered off and he glanced to their right, frowning. “He said there’s nothing we can do but wait.”

Haeseon followed his gaze to where Freyr was seated some ways off from their crew. In his arms, he cradled the girl from his crew, Ahrim, who was trembling like a leaf even in her many layers of furs. She looked sickly, and it might’ve been a trick of Haeseon’s battered mind, but he thought he saw her hands change form, the tips of her fingers growing thin and sharp and grey like iron.

“He gave her back her Blessing.” Yeonshin’s words were so quiet, Haeseon barely managed to catch them at all. “He woke up slowly, and as soon as he did, he took her hand and pushed her Blessing back into her body,” he said, frowning with distaste. “I think… I think he might’ve been late. I don’t know how long we were unconscious after the fall, but being apart from her Blessing for so long might’ve hurt her.”

The nausea simmering in Haeseon’s gut flared, and he shoved himself away from Jun’s side in time to empty whatever had still been left in his stomach onto the icy ground. His throat burned with sourness and tears stung at his eyes, and deep within his chest, the canary cried out in dread. “Never,” he whispered and clutched at the front of his robes, as if to cling to his own Blessing with all his might. “Never, never, he will never take it from me.”

Hands rubbed soothingly at his back, but they did very little to stave off the second wave of nausea that rose to his lips. He heaved again, the muscles of his abdomen constricting until it was painful. When he finally settled, his head felt as if it might’ve been cracked open and filled with stones. “I’m sorry, Haeseon,” Yeonshin said, distraight. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have spoken of it.”

Haeseon tried to shake his head and ease the surgeon’s worry, but it only made the ache in him worse. “‘S fine,” he murmured, even though it wasn’t. What Freyr had done was not fine, and Haeseon was not fine with knowing.

He drifted in and out of consciousness after that. The next time he opened his eyes, he was surrounded by warmth and his right arm had been bound with cloth around his wrist and elbow. Someone nudged a few chips of ice against his lips and he took them into his mouth before turning away to bury his face back into the warmth of whomever was holding him. The voices around him made little sense to his ears, and he was pulled back under quickly enough.

When Haeseon woke up again, it was too dark to see. He could barely tell up from down, only that a surface of hard ice was pressed against his side while the rest of him was warm and comfortable. He did not want to move; for a blessed instant, nothing in him was aching. His body, although heavy, had ceased its throbbing along with his head, so he kept his eyes closed and waited, unmoving, to fall back to sleep.

Deep as they were inside the glacier, there was no way of telling time. By the time Haeseon woke for the third time, the darkness had began to fade even from the depths of the ravine. It was light enough to make out the shapes of everyone trapped within, but whether it was morning, daytime, or evening, it was impossible to tell.

When he attempted to sit up, a huff of a breath hit the top of his head and made him look up. It was difficult to turn, and he realised he had slept in Xiao’s arms, the comfort coming from his Blessing’s form to give Haeseon warmth in the night. The bear was asleep, although he huffed again when Haeseon stirred, his nose twitching before he settled once more.

A smile found its way onto Haeseon’s lips. “Thank you, Xiao,” he whispered and lay still for a few moments longer before carefully easing himself out of the bear’s arms. His head spun slightly when he sat up—the ache in his skull had settled deep and clung stubbornly to him—but he blinked his way through his dizziness and looked around.

Seunggi and Jun were asleep against Xiao’s sides, curled up as close as they could come for warmth. The bear’s fur kept the cold at bay well enough, although their breath still misted for every exhale. Yeonshin lay with his head in the cook’s lap and his arms around his waist, pressed up against the furs that warmed his stomach in an attempt to seek out even a sliver of warmth.

It had Haeseon overcome with guilt, to see his friends so cold when he himself had been comfortable in the carpenter’s arms. He turned and looked at Freyr and Ahrim, the latter of whom seemed better now; she was serene in her sleep, the changing of her body having ceased, if only temporarily. Freyr himself looked as if he might’ve been struck with the chill, coughing even in his rest, but they shared each other’s warmth, arms wrapped tightly around one another.

Finally, Haeseon looked at Hisashi, and his heart sank like a stone.

The swordsman was plagued by tremors and cramps, the whole of his body seizing for every shrill breath he drew. His jaw was set taut and the muscles of his neck strained with tension. It was not difficult to know where his ache came from; no matter Yeonshin’s efforts to bind the wound in his side and treat it, the cold slowed his healing and made it a far more difficult process.

Hisashi looked like he was dying.

Clumsily, Haeseon rose to his feet, swaying a little where he stood. The heaviness of his head was still there, but he persisted and made his way over to the swordsman, careful to not slip and fall on the ice. He reached up and untied the straps of his furs, the fine ones Talya had given him. He pulled them off his shoulders and was immediately overcome by a shudder of cold, one he ignored in favour of tucking the furs against Hisashi’s side as best he could with only one arm.

It was not enough, and so Haeseon stripped out of his robes, layer by layer, and draped them over the swordsman’s side to give him warmth. For every piece of clothing he removed, the Northern chill gripped harder at his skin, but he did not stop. He couldn’t. Instead, he called on the feathers of his Blessing to keep the cold out of his bones, and resumed his undressing.

When he shrugged out of his last robes, the ones Jihan had given him long before they had ever thought to sail North, Hisashi stirred. He startled out of his laboured slumber with a sharp breath and looked around, disoriented and searching for what had caused him to wake. When he noticed Haeseon standing at his side, he jerked away as best he could, his face twisting in both pain and anger. “Wh-what are you doing?” he hissed, his eyes flickering all over Haeseon’s form, from the robes he held in his hand to his state of undress, only the backless shirt still clinging to his body. “What the fuck—”

“Hold still,” Haeseon said and held up the robes, but Hisashi only retreated further, one hand going to the sword in his lap. “Hisashi—”

“I asked you what the fuck you’re doing,” the swordsman barked, foregoing any effort to keep his voice low. It echoed in the ravine, loud enough to pull the others from their sleep. When Haeseon gave no answer, Hisashi looked down at himself, his eyes growing wide at the many new layers that covered his wounded side. “What is—”

“You need warmth,” Haeseon said. He was nervous now. He did not want to upset the swordsman or make him hate him more than he already did, but he was stubborn as well. When Hisashi moved to pull the topmost robe off his shoulder, Haeseon reached out and took hold of his wrist. “I know you’re angry with me, Hisashi, but your wound will fester if you don’t keep it warm.”

“Do you think I want your help?” the swordsman spat and tore himself out of Haeseon’s grip. He did it with some effort; his injured state had weakened him greatly. “I don’t want your pity. I don’t want your anything.”

The others were wide awake now, murmuring amongst one another, but Haeseon pretended not to hear. The ache had spread from the base of his head to the rest of him now, fuelled by a quickly rising frustration. “It’s not pity, Hisashi,” he said, struggling to keep his voice calm. “I’m worried about you.”

The swordsman scoffed as if it was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “You have no fucking reason to be, do you?” he asked harshly, yet in spite of his anger, his breath was laboured and the tremors stronger than before. He was weak, but he clung to his pride with all he had, and it reminded Haeseon of the first time he had attempted to help Hisashi, when he had hurt his shoulder amidst a battle at sea. “You’re doing this only because you think it’ll change a damn thing, but it won’t. I don’t want your help.”

“Hisashi—”

“Is there something wrong with yours ears?!” the swordsman shouted, his words echoing in the ravine’s silence. “I don’t want your help, so get the fuck away from me!”

Perhaps it was the dull pain coursing through Haeseon’s tired body, or perhaps the wince that went through Hisashi’s body upon his outburst, or the crippling cold, but as soon as his voice had died down, Haeseon raised his in return, all thoughts of forced calm and nervousness as good as gone. “You’re right, I have no reason to be worried about you,” he said shrilly. “Why should I be, when you continue to treat me with disdain after I’ve tried again and again to make things right between us?”

His voice grew in volume for every word he spoke, until he was the one shouting. “I’ve tried to make amends, but you refuse to hear it, because you’re stubborn and you’re arrogant, and you’re foolish!” He threw the robes at Hisashi’s feet, uncaring of the manner in which the swordsman stared up at him. “You can hate me all you want, Hisashi,” Haeseon cried, “but if you die here simply because you’re too proud to accept my help, the only thing you prove to anyone is how stupid you are!”

He might’ve been finished there, but Hisashi parted his lips to protest, so he carried on only for the sake of interrupting him. “You shut up!” Haeseon shouted and turned away. “I know every problem you have with me, so you don’t need to say another word anymore!” Months of agitation and suppressed ire was pouring out of him now and he needed to let go of it all, which is why, instead of simply walking away, he rounded on Freyr. “And you,” he said loudly and raised a trembling hand to point at the boy, who was still blinking sleep from his eyes, wide and bewildered. “I don’t know what it is I’ve done to make you hate me, but I’m finished. I’m finished trying to play nice with you when you clearly have no intention of meeting me halfway. You’re rude, you’re obnoxious, and I don’t care if you’re Talya’s son anymore!”

The genuinity of Freyr’s surprise only served to make Haeseon all the more angry, his feathers bristling along his shoulders and neck. “I won’t speak to you or come near you again,” he hissed, his voice a shrill whistle, “so stay away from me and mine.”

Haeseon stood towering over him for several long seconds, daring the boy to retort with whatever snark he surely wanted to. He waited, glaring, and only when Freyr looked away, huffing as he did, did Haeseon finally retreat. With his breath heavy and quivering with cold, he walked over to Seunggi, who hadn’t moved from his seat next to Xiao, his good eye wide in shock at Haeseon’s outburst. His surprise was mirrored by Yeonshin and Jun and even Xiao, the latter of which would’ve made quite a comical sight, had Haeseon been in a better mood.

With a huff, he took his seat next to the quartermaster. He urged his feathers to grow to the fullest all the way to the small of his back, until every inch of his bare skin was covered and his wings grown out. His right arm still throbbed with pain, but he curled his wings tightly against himself for warmth, and then he said nothing, intent to be silent until his anger would pass.

Some of his tension eased when Seunggi carefully nudged him in the side and pressed his face against Haeseon’s shoulder. “‘M proud of you, Haesae,” he whispered and smiled against his feathers. “It’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it?”

Haeseon was far from proud, but he nodded all the same, and pretended he couldn’t feel the tinge of guilt gnawing at the edges of his mind.

The day passed in silence. With no way of getting out of the ravine on their own and no knowledge of when the others would come find them—if they would come at all—the lot of them tried to waste as little energy as they could. Before their journey, they had packed enough dried food to last them four days; of that ration, two days’ worth still remained if they shared it carefully enough. They had no water, but with all the ice around them, they had plenty enough to drink. They carved chips from the wall and chewed on them to quench their thirst, and tried not to think of their hunger.

Haeseon refused to give in to the cold. He made Xiao share his warmth with Hisashi, who was still racked with tremors, although they were less frequent now. He also refused Jun and Yeonshin’s offer to share their furs with him; while the cook had come down with a fever, the surgeon had cut through an entire layer of his own robes to bind Haeseon’s arm and Seunggi’s leg, as well as Hisashi’s chest. Haeseon smiled and turned their offers down, insisting that the cold could not get past his feathers.

Amidst the second night, Haeseon was torn from his slumber by a muffled whimper. He sat up, alarmed, and found Seunggi clutching to the front of his shirt, his face twisted in pain in his sleep. It was his leg, Haeseon knew; the quartermaster put on a brave facade while the lot of them were awake, but with no elixirs or potions to ease his hurting, he was in constant agony. The cold made it worse, so Haeseon pulled him against his chest and folded his wings over Seunggi’s body to keep him warm.

The quartermaster stayed in Haeseon’s embrace the whole of the following day, drifting in and out of consciousness. Haeseon only gently coaxed him awake with quiet words whenever he wanted Seunggi to eat or drink. It seemed kinder to let him sleep through his pain, a notion Yeonshin agreed with. “It’s merciful,” he said quietly amidst his attempts to make Hisashi chew on a handful of ice chips. “Even if the worst was to happen now, it’s… it’s mercy.”

The surgeon grew more distraught for every day that passed with the people of his crew growing more and more ill. “I’m a doctor,” he said on the third day. His hands trembled where they hovered over Jun’s cheeks, flushed with fever. “I’m the one who should be healing them. It’s my duty, yet now, there is nothing I can do to help them.”

“Your presence alone helps us,” Haeseon said thickly. He hadn’t spoken for hours and hours, and he did not want to wake Seunggi, but he needed Yeonshin to see. “Even when there is nothing you can do, you still give us hope, Yeonshin. We know we’re in good hands, even when those hands can’t heal us.”

The surgeon said nothing to that, but by the wetness that spilled down his cheeks, Haeseon hoped he had understood.

When light filled the ravine after another two nights, Seunggi did not wake. Not properly; he was trembling in the same manner Hisashi had been days prior, his skin flushed and hot to the touch. Seeing him in such agony had Haeseon’s heart threatening to crack within his chest. No matter how he held the quartermaster or what words he murmured against his feverish skin, the tremors would not settle.

In a desperate attempt to soothe him, Haeseon parted his lips and sang, the voice of the canary spilling from him while he rocked his friend in his arms. The song was quiet and without a proper tune. It sounded odd in the echo of the ravine, but slowly, Seunggi’s tremors and gasps eased into shallow breathing. He clutched at the front of Haeseon’s shirt and whimpered in his sleep, and Haeseon curled more tightly around him without ceasing his singing.

When Freyr spoke for the first time in days, raising his voice to tell Haeseon to be quiet lest Hel might find them, Jun retorted before anyone else had the chance. “You shut your mouth, boy,” he said snappishly, his words laboured with fever, “or I swear I’ll shut it for you.”

The boy scowled, but for once, he did as told. He turned away and returned his attention to Ahrim, whose state matched the cook’s own, feverish and frail, and said nothing more.

Haeseon lost count of the nights after that. He wasn’t entirely certain how long his slumbers lasted, but by the depleting life of not only himself but those around him, he wondered if he sometimes slept for longer than an entire sun cycle. He hadn’t eaten in days and he was cold all the way to the bone.

He was dying, he knew, but what frightened him far worse was Seunggi dying before him.

When Haeseon woke the next time, it took him a long moment to realise his form was twisted and odd. It was as if he, in his sleep, had attempted to force his feathers to grow as big as they could become. They were thicker than usual, heavier, and when he moved his wings around Seunggi’s body, his skin hurt with the strain of the quills’ girth.

It was his hybrid form, but pushed to its very limits for the sake of keeping his friend warm.

There was light in the ravine, but no one else was awake. Haeseon looked around, his mind slow in its attempts to grasp at what he saw. The walls were paler than the day before, frost clinging to the clear ice, brought there by the freezing chill. When Haeseon coughed, he realised there was frost on him as well, in his feathers, in his hair, even on his skin, which had grown so cold it could no longer melt the prickling flakes.

His breath passed slowly to mirror the beat of his heart. He was numb all the way to his lungs, yet he sat upright all the same and forced the shudder away from his form as he parted his lips. The sound that left him was not a song or any comprehensible words, but a sound that came from the very core of his Blessing. It was a cry of sorts, high and clear, one that echoed through the ravine, ringing from its walls.

It lasted only for a matter of seconds, and when it died, Haeseon breathed deep and made it again, and again and again until he lost count.

It was an act of desperation, a call for help for someone, anyone, to come find them. It did not matter who; even if the one to come would be Hel herself, Haeseon would be content. Surely, a quick death at the hands of she who was its goddess would be gentler than to be claimed by starvation and the cold.

-

...

//hides

so um yeah shit doesn't look very hot right now nope in fact they look very bad and holy crap this chapter was pAINFUL TO WRITE because i don't want my babies to suffer oh my god someone save them FAST ;__________;

but like also yay at haeseon for finally standing up for himself and yelling at both hisashi and freyr, right??? yay haeseon!!!! yay.....

I FELT COLD JUST WRITING THIS OH MY GOD JIHAN YOU DICKHEAD HURRY YOUR ASS UP AND SAVE THEM PL E AS E

ALSO SMOL REMINDER THAT MCD IS STILL NOT A THING IN THIS BOOK OKAY MCD IS N O T A THING

see you next week ;________;


	17. chapter 16 - Through the Dark

i'm like 4 minutes late because i forgot an important piece of dialogue in the middle of this chapter and had to go back and edit it sO SORRY ABOUT THATSJHDJSHD

also i reeeeeeally like this chapter like omg it has so many "what the heck?????" moments and mYSTERIES AND PLOT AND FORESHADOWING AND—

League of Legends - Kindred, the Eternal Hunters 

Vindsvept & Merrigan - Norrsken 

-

In his dreams, Haeseon saw a face.

It was familiar, yet at the same time not, like an imitation of someone he knew. Someone he loved as a dear friend. It hovered out of his reach, smiling at him, but the quirk of its lips was wrong. It was twisted and wry and laced with disdain when it opened its mouth to laugh at him. Black liquid spilled from its lips, yet there was no sound of it.

All Haeseon could hear was the beat of a heart, loud as a drum. While the face laughed in its mockery, the sound pressed itself beneath his skin, until it closed around his own heart and took command of its pace, slowing it down against his will. He grew cold and weak, and the beat of the drum crawled into his ears to render him deaf to the sound of his own death.

I don’t want to die, he thought. Or perhaps the thought was not his own; it came from the core of his being, a flicker of resilience. I refuse.

Amidst its cackling, the face was torn in half, splitting open down the middle to give way for a monstrous being, black like the liquid that had spilled from the mouth of his friend’s face. Haeseon could not see the creature, not clearly, only its silhouette, which towered over him, five times as tall. The beat of the drum grew louder, but it couldn’t match the ring of fear in Haeseon’s ears.

“Who are you?” he asked of the being. Or he tried to; he couldn’t hear his own voice, even as he felt his lips move around it. “What are you?”

A snarl like the rumble of an earthquake was his reply, an inhuman sound. “I know you,” the creature said. Haeseon could not see its mouth, but its words forced their way inside his eardrums, harsh and deafeningly loud. “I know who you are. You are a liar.”

Confusion bled into his fear at the accusation. “I don’t—I’m not,” he said, recoiling when the creature emitted a rumbling snarl. “I-I haven’t lied to you. I don’t even know who you are!”

“You will lie!” The being’s voice was everywhere all at once, lost only to the unyielding beat that racked Haeseon’s core. It was horrible and he did not want to hear it, but when he pressed his hands against his ears in attempt to shut it out, the creature snarled and moved as if to lunge at him, but it was held back by a rattle of iron. It cried out in anger and tore at its invisible restraints, thrashing violently before turning to Haeseon again, its eyes gleaming yellow in the darkness. “When you come seeking my help, you will,” it spat. “Like everyone else, you will lie.”

Haeseon parted his lips and closed them again, his protests forgotten in the face of the being’s words. He stared up into its eyes and tried to see it for who—or what—it was, but the blackness was too suffocating. All he could see was its sheer size, hulking and monstrous. “Who,” he began in a whisper, the first word from his lips he could hear. It left him in a puff of misted breath, icy cold as he was. “Who are you? Why will I come find you?”

“The Valkyrja's ilk will tell you my name, little crow,” the creature said. “She will send you to me, and you will beg me to save you.”

The sound of the drum made his head hurt, an ache that spread to the rest of him. In his disorientation, he latched onto that which was not important, offense flaring up in his chest. “I’m not a crow,” he said and curled his arms tightly against his torso, as if to shield that which was most precious to him. “I’m a canary. I don’t lie.”

“Liar!” the creature bellowed. Its voice shook the very darkness around them, and the irons rattled once more. “You’re a liar, little crow, and I will have one of your hands for it!”

The tremors of its cry did not settle. The blackness quaked and split as if it was coming apart at the seams to shatter like glass. A startled exclaim spilled from Haeseon’s lips, thick with frost and the winter chill. He looked around and saw nothing, and when he searched for the creature again, it was writhing as if in agony, its cries feeding the beat of the drum until Haeseon’s ears might’ve shattered from it.

Just when he thought his head might crack open from the ache the noise caused him, everything around him stilled once more. The creature was gone, its voice along with it, leaving in its wake a silence so thick Haeseon feared he might’ve lost his hearing completely. He looked around for something, anything at all, but the black of night pressed against him from all sides. It seeped into his skin and made him tired, as if it was sucking the life right out of his hurting body.

No, he tried to say, but his lips would not move. None of him would move; only his heart beat inside his chest, its pace made slow by the cold and the drum that dictated every beat it struck. I don’t want to die.

A sound spilled from his mouth, a desperate cry for help pulled out of the core of his Blessing, and a distant voice answered, silencing the sound of his heart. Songbird, it said, shaking his frail and failing body in an attempt to draw a sign of life out of him. Songbird, it cried and drew him against its chest. There was warmth and comfort, and Haeseon let go of the resistance in him, the drum fading into nothingness as he gave himself away to the dark.

“Songbird!”

Haeseon drew a sharp breath, so cold it felt as if he had swallowed shards of ice. He coughed, his shivering frame racked by his expulsion of frost. There were hands holding his face, one warm to the touch while the other remained as cold as he felt, and even in his disorientation, Haeseon knew whose they were.

He’d know them anywhere.

He tried to speak his beloved’s name, but his throat was as cold as his lungs. His eyelids were too heavy to raise and his wings too stiff where they clutched onto the shuddering body in his embrace. Every bit of him was cold as ice, but he was breathing, and Jihan was there.

“Fuck, songbird, you’re so cold,” the captain hissed. There was a rustle of fabric, followed by a heavy softness being draped over Haeseon’s shoulders. He could barely distinguish its warmth; the feathers along his back were covered with frost, the skin underneath colder still. “Why the fuck are you bared to the skin? Where are your robes? Your furs?”

There were other voices rising all around him, Haeseon realised, some familiar, some strange. There were many, at least two dozen shouting at each other, calling for help, for robes, for rope. They were too many, too many for the numbness that plagued Haeseon’s mind to recognise, so he ceased his attempts in favour of prying his eyes open to look at his beloved.

His vision was unclear and the light made the ache in his skull worse, but he needed to see. He needed to know it wasn’t an illusion or a dream, so he raised his head against the stiffness of his neck and looked. The whole of him was trembling and he wanted to succumb to the exhaustion that had taken him away from the cold, but he looked at Jihan and took in the worry and the desperation etched deep into his face, and he knew it was truly him.

Jihan was there. Jihan was alive, unharmed, and he was there.

“Songbird,” the captain said slowly. His good hand settled against Haeseon’s neck, scorching against the frost. Haeseon shuddered again, gasping as he let his head hang again, half wanting to escape the burning heat, half wishing it could consume him. “Songbird, say something.”

Haeseon tried. At first, all that left his lips were a string of incoherent sounds, plagued by the chilled shudder that had taken root inside his very lungs. His voice wouldn't come, only a trembling string of air that made his throat ache. His lungs contracted to make him cough, but it was too painful, so he gagged, the whole of his body convulsing with the force of it.

“Song—someone bring me more fucking robes!” Jihan’s words were laced with panic when he turned to shout at those who had come with him. Haeseon didn’t like it; hearing his beloved so upset had his heart aching in his chest, so he attempted to move his arms to touch the captain simply to make him realise he was going to be fine.

He wasn’t going to die. None of them were.

“J-Ji—an,” was all Haeseon managed, the breath needed to properly speak the captain’s name too painful for his throat to bear. Hearing his own voice startled himself. It was hoarse and croaking, and thin as a whistle, but it was more than enough to draw Jihan’s attention back to him. “Ji-Ji’an—”

A cough finally broke through his lungs, thick and rattling and so painful it had a shrill cry spilling from his lips along with it. “Fuck,” Jihan said again and gripped firmly at his shoulder to keep him from recoiling too much from his fit of coughing. The other stroked along his back, pressing the soft furs against his frost-riddled feathers. “I’m sorry, songbird, I’m so sorry it took me so long to find you. I’m so sorry.”

Don’t cry, Haeseon thought even as tears spilled down his own cheeks, brought to his eyes by the pain in his throat. Please, please don’t cry.

It felt like an eternity before his coughing finally settled, leaving him out of breath and panting. He leaned heavily against Jihan’s chest while the captain stroked along the feathers of his wings, shushing him gently with his lips pressed against the top of Haeseon’s head. “What have you done, songbird?” he whispered. Truly, he sounded as if he was crying. “You’ve kept Seunggi warm, and I love you for it, but what of you? Where are your furs, songbird? Why are you the only one to be so cold?”

With great effort, Haeseon turned his head and looked at where the others had been sitting against the wall, Xiao in his Blessing’s form and the others pressed against him. There were strangers obscuring his view of them, but he knew who they had been. “H-Hi-Hisash-shi n-needed w-wa-w-warmth,” he rasped, his lips quivering. “H-h-he's hu-h-hurt. H-h-h-he lo-looked l-like h-h-he was dy-dying.”

By the way Jihan’s chest shifted against the side of his head, Haeseon knew he was turning to look as well. His hands stilled against Haeseon’s quivering frame, a tension to them that Haeseon recognised with ease. It was the same tautness that came over the captain whenever he was so plagued with frustration, all he wanted to do to expel it was scream.

Instead, Jihan turned back and pulled Haeseon more firmly against himself. “You,” he said hoarsely, “are bloody fucking impossible, songbird.”

Haeseon wanted to laugh at his words, but he swallowed the urge to do so, knowing it would hurt every bit as much as his coughing. He did smile, however, pressing his face against the warmth his beloved exuded. “H-h-how d-did yo-you f-fi-f-find us?” he asked, even though it hardly mattered now. Jihan was there. He had come. 

“Your voice,” the captain said, his voice muffled against the top of Haeseon’s hair. “I heard your voice, songbird. Sabelsdottír said it was just a bird, a bird of the sea looking for food ashore, but I know your voice.” He sounded so sure of himself, as if he was willing to challenge anyone who’d defy him. “I’d know your voice anywhere, songbird,” he said. His hands trembled where they held onto Haeseon, as if it took all his effort to not embrace him too tightly. “I’d follow it anywhere.”

Tears rose to Haeseon’s eyes, overwhelmed as he was by his beloved’s words. He struggled to keep them at bay, knowing they would freeze on his cheeks and add to the crippling cold. “Th-tha-thank you,” he whispered instead and leaned into Jihan’s touch, eyes closed against his chest. The captain said nothing, but Haeseon knew his mind as if it had been his own. All they needed just then were each other’s presence, their touch enough of a reassurance for both of them.

When the emotions brimming in Haeseon’s chest had settled, he spoke again, in spite of how it made his throat ache. “I k-k-kept S-Seung-g-gi wa-warm,” he said and looked down at the quartermaster where he slept in his embrace, taut with the Northern chill yet lack of tremors. “H-his leg i-is-is b-broken, h-h-he—he needs h-h-he—”

His stuttering attempts at conveying his worry was interrupted when a warm body came up by his other side, coarse fur settling against the feathers of his arms. He gasped and closed his eyes, a whimper of a sound spilling from his lips when a wet snout rubbed against his jaw. Haeseon didn’t have to look to know who it was, but he did all the same, wanting to see his friend unhurt.

In her Blessing’s form, Talya was large enough to easily curl around him to feed him the warmth of her body. She did just that, settling on the icy ground behind Haeseon and nudging him with her great head. She peered up at him and then turned to Jihan, who hesitated, his reluctance clear, before carefully jostling Haeseon until he was all but lying over the Northern Cardinal, his face buried in the thick mane around her neck.

“You can let go of him now, songbird,” the captain murmured and thumbed at the feathers of his wings. “We have to get him out of this ravine.” For a brief moment, Haeseon only tightened his embrace on Seunggi, an instinctive protectiveness flaring in his chest. Jihan did not cease his caressing of his wings, however, and his voice remained as gentle as ever. “You’ve done wonderfully, songbird,” he said. “You’ve kept him warm and safe from the cold, haven’t you? You’ve given him everything, and now we have to move him so Yeonshin can make him better.” He kissed Haeseon’s cheek, uncaring of Talya’s curious gaze. “Will you let me take him?”

His words were soothing and full of praise, and they put Haeseon’s instincts to ease in an instant. He nodded against Talya’s fur and eased his grip on Seunggi, wincing as he forced his wings to move after hours, possibly days of stillness. With a whispered thanks and another kiss to his cheek, Jihan let him go in favour of pulling his brother into his arms, mindful of his leg as he lifted him off of Haeseon’s lap.

The lack of weight made his legs numb and he turned to bury the pained whimper that rose to his lips into Talya’s mane. The Northern Cardinal emitted a rumbling sound to appease him, soothing as she nudged his side, pressing close to keep him warm while Jihan took care of Seunggi. With his exhaustion creeping back, Haeseon let himself doze off, slipping in and out of consciousness while he waited for his beloved to return.

When Jihan did, he told Haeseon he had to withdraw the feathers of his wings, not only so he could wear the robes the captain had draped over his frame, but so they could tie ropes around him to pull him out of the ravine. The mere thought made him wince; his wings were riddled with frost. Surely, it would hurt beyond compare to draw his Blessing’s feathers into his skin now.

“You can’t stay here, songbird,” Jihan said with agitated worry when he saw Haeseon’s reluctance. “We have to get you someplace warm as fast as we can.”

Before Haeseon could properly voice his protest, Talya emitted a huff and stood up, although she kept her body squatted to the ground so as to not push him off her frame. She looked at Jihan and jerked her head towards her own back before nudging Haeseon again as if attempting to coax him more securely onto her back.

“You would carry him,” Jihan said with no small amount of disbelief. When Talya nodded, he looked towards the wall they had scaled, drawing his lip between his teeth in contemplation. “Can you do it?” he asked when he turned back again. “Can you carry him out of here?”

With a snort, Talya nodded again and scraped the claws of her front paws against the icy ground. It yielded easily beneath their sharpness, with a sound that made Haeseon’s good ear hurt, so Jihan nodded and stood upright to help adjust Haeseon on her back. Before he did, however, he pulled all the furs and robes off his shoulders save for one and tied them together around Haeseon’s chest and neck, bundling him up in as much warmth as he could with his wings still out.

“Come, songbird,” the captain whispered against his temple as he helped him rise enough to straddle Talya’s back. He worried he might’ve been too heavy for her, but she hardly budged under the full weight of him, strong as ever on her feet when he settled on her back and wrapped his feathered arms around her neck. “Hold on tightly, you hear me?” Jihan said, his voice riddled with anxiousness. “It’s a steep climb, and we can’t have you falling.”

Haeseon nodded and made himself keep his eyes open, knowing he would fall asleep should he close them for longer than a wink. He folded his wings as tightly as he dared around Talya’s neck, settling them so they wouldn’t choke her on their way up. “Th-t-thank you,” he stuttered against her fur and drew comfort from the rumble she emitted in reply.

The climb was all but a blur. There were voices all around him when they stood at the base of the ravine’s wall, speaking in a tongue Haeseon could not understand. He did not look at them; it cost him all his strength just to stay awake. Whatever they said, Talya only nodded in reply, and when they were done, she began to climb.

The world shifted and Haeseon clutched onto her frame as firmly as he could, pulled downwards by gravity as they rose higher and higher. Talya’s ascent was steady and without pause, her claws sinking deep into the ice, the sheer strength of her Blessing’s form making it seem like an effortless thing for her. She did not make a single sound of protest, not even when Haeseon held onto her so tightly it must’ve hurt her neck and made it difficult to breathe.

Haeseon did close his eyes when they came close to the top of the ravine. The light was far stronger there, so much so that it hurt him to keep his eyes open any longer. He buried his face in Talya’s neck and told himself to stay awake, over and over, to not allow himself to succumb to the pull of his exhaustion.

When they finally reached the mouth of the ravine, the Northern Cardinal did not linger for very long. She waited only long enough for Jihan to join them, pacing back and forth in impatience while Haeseon still clung to her, too numb to properly realise what was happening around him. When the captain ascended, they were off in an instant, making their way through the thick snow.

As soon as Haeseon had the sense to look around, his heart sank at the sight of the glacier. What had been the beautiful open flat of ice was now a complete and utter ruin, with jagged pillars of ice rising left and right, the ground beneath their feet uneven. The quakes seemed to have destroyed most of the glacier’s structure, at least the path whence they’d first came; there was no wall to descend, only a slope of uneven chunks of ice frozen together.

When they reached the base of the glacier, Talya led them west rather than south, where their ships were waiting. In his confusion, Haeseon attempted to sit upright so he could have a proper look, but Jihan placed a hand on his back and kept him where he was. “We have to get you warm,” he said, out of breath from keeping up with Talya’s pace. “We don’t have the right stuff to do that aboard a ship. We’re gathering in the town of Svalbard.”

Haeseon’s bewilderment only grew, but he did not have the strength to question it any further. Instead, he sank back against the Northern Cardinal’s form and shut his eyes for a moment, trusting the captain’s hand on his back to keep him upright should he doze off now.

The trek was far quicker than it had been when he and Freyr had made it. What had taken hours now seemed to pass in a matter of minutes; when Jihan announced they had arrived, Haeseon blinked heavily, feeling as if he’d been pulled up from a pool of cold water. He craned his head to look in the direction of their heading, only to promptly have his heart plummet to the pit of his stomach.

The small town stood in ruins, smoke and ash rising from every destroyed hut. It was like a storm of fire had passed through it, breaking open the roof and walls of every house and torn asunder all that had lived within. There was not a human being in sight, none of the curious townsfolk that had greeted Haeseon when he’d last come here. 

“Calm, songbird,” Jihan said when he noticed Haeseon’s distress. “It’s only an illusion, made by Talya’s husband to keep unwanted guests away. The town still stands.”

Even though Haeseon knew what Qasim’s Blessing was capable of, he couldn’t make himself be calm until they had passed the edges of the apparition. As soon as they crossed within its reach, the town as it had been formed all around them, every hut and shop untouched. Its people were still missing; while several of pirates from both Talya and Freyr’s crews moved about the edges of the illusion, the townsfolk were nowhere to be seen.

Again, Jihan reassured him before he could ask. “We rounded up the people and barricaded them inside the town’s hall,” he said and pointed to the largest building in the hamlet, outside of which the pirate who had taken the form of a white bear during the battle against Hel stood guard by the sealed doors. There was fire flickering through the cracks in the walls, a brazier built for warmth, no doubt. “We will let them out as soon as we leave. We couldn’t risk having anyone of them draw attention to the town.”

“Wh-what a-a-about H-He-H—” No matter how Haeseon tried, the words wouldn’t come, stuck on the icy mass in his throat. He swallowed thickly and immediately winced at the sharpness it brought on, prickling along his throat until all he wanted to do was claw at it until it came loose.

“We haven’t seen her since the battle,” Jihan said, his hand stroking along Haeseon’s back. “We don’t know where she has gone, but during the eight days it took us to find you, we haven’t heard a sound of her.” He shuddered in the cold, lips curled down into a grimace. “She won’t come find us here,” he said firmly. “We’re safe, if only for now.”

He spoke with such conviction, Haeseon couldn’t help but believe him. Relieved, he slumped back against Talya’s form and remained still and silent as she carried him to a building by the edge of the water, one with no windows or gasp to look inside. Geir, the blonde archer, stood outside the doors, and he greeted his captain with a few words before pushing the doors open for them to enter.

The house was full of life, hectic and rushed, with far too many people crowding the one room it held. There was a fire stirring in the hearth, with a large cauldron of water simmering over it. In the corner of the hall, Yeonshin was bent over Seunggi’s leg, sweat clinging to his brow as he tended to his leg with sharp concentration. Next to them, the vǫlva from Talya’s crew spread salve over the wound in Hisashi’s side, which had been closed with needle and thread. The shaman was murmuring strange words under her breath as she worked, her voice muted by the deer skull she wore for a mask.

Several more of all three crews were moving about, calling for supplies or bandages left and right. In her Blessing’s form, Talya had no room to move, so Jihan pulled Haeseon into his arms to let her take her human skin. “Prepare a bath for him,” she called the instant she could speak, uncaring of her own nakedness in her hurry. “Don’t make the water too hot, or his body will be shocked by it.”

It was Jun who moved to comply, ignoring Daewon’s protests as he shrugged off his furs to fetch a wooden tub from the back of the hall. The cook’s cheeks were flushed with fever and his hands trembled when they attempted to pull the cauldron from the fire; he didn’t settle down again until the first mate all but forced him to, pushing him back towards his furs and taking over the vat.

While Talya moved over to ensure the water was just right, Jihan began undoing the knots he had made in the furs he’d wrapped around Haeseon’s body. “We have to get you out of these frozen clothes,” he said. He helped Haeseon strip with little regards for his modesty, far too anxious to get him warm again to worry about what anyone would see. When he was done, he guided Haeseon across the room, bearing most of his weight against his side as he helped him walk to the bath Daewon had prepared.

The water was lukewarm at best, but it felt hot on Haeseon’s skin all the same when he stepped into the tub. He gave a violent shudder and his legs threatened to fold, but Jihan held him in his strong arms and carefully lowered him into the bath until he was submerged up to his shoulders, his wings folded tightly against his chest to fit. The warmth had Haeseon gasping for breath, rushing to every inch of him and melting the ice that had settled inside him.

Talya kneeled by the tub, eyes wide with concern. “Is it too hot?” she asked and touched the water. One of her crewmen came over with robes for her to wear, but she ignored them in favour of waiting for Haeseon to answer. “Does it make you hurt?”

Too overwhelmed to speak, Haeseon merely shook his head and drew his knees up against his chest. His heart was beating fast, a stark comparison to how slow it had been made by the cold. His skin was bitten by frost, but it was thawing now, and the relief of it rendered him mute. He leaned his head against Jihan’s arm where it rested against the edge of the tub, his eyes shut tight as he waited for the northern chill to be expelled from his body.

They let him rest like that, with the captain stroking Haeseon’s temple and murmuring words of comfort against his skin while Talya watched in silence, finally taking the time to slip into her furs. When the water became chilled from the frost on his skin, the Northern Cardinal called for more from the cauldron over the fire, careful as she poured it into the bath to make it warm again.

Before long, the ice had melted from the feathers of Haeseon’s wings and he began to draw them back without properly realising what he was doing. The numbness in him had began to let go, but his mind was still slowed by his tiredness; he did not notice his Blessing’s feathers had disappeared completely until a hushed voice spoke up from beside him and Jihan’s hand tensed against his cheek.

He opened his eyes and startled at the sight of the vǫlva crouching next to his tub. He couldn’t see her face for the mask, but by the way her head was lowered, he imagined she was staring at the scars that spread along his neck and chest, the dark marks left behind by the lightning that had killed the Rabid Conflagration. Slowly, Haeseon recalled the way the shaman had hovered her hands over the scars when they’d united with Talya. He didn’t know what her interest with the old wound was, but he held very still when the vǫlva reached out to touch them.

Her hands were calloused and rough, but gentle all the same. Her fingers followed the pattern of the scars, beginning its trail from just below his right ear to his chest, uncaring of the water as she followed its path. For once, she did not speak, silent in her awe as she went about her ministrations.

“What is she doing?” Jihan asked, the stiffness of his touch seeping into his voice. He made little effort to hide his suspicion as he stared at the vǫlva, the muscles of his arms tense as if he was ready to shove the woman back should he need to.

“I don’t know,” Talya said bluntly, peering at her shaman with curiosity. “Not many has seen a mark left by the gods themselves, least of all by Þórr himself. There is power in a god’s mark. As a vǫlva, she must want to feel it for herself.”

Haeseon flushed with embarrassment, a faint warmth rushing to his cheeks so quickly it made him dizzy. He wanted to tell the Northern Cardinal again that what had happened wasn’t the way she said it was, but the heat of the bath was making his head spin, so he only closed his eyes and turned away from her and her shaman to hide as best he could against Jihan’s arm.

The vǫlva withdrew her hand soon enough, murmuring under her breath as she stood upright. She tipped her head in a bow and turned to leave, drifting back over to Hiashi’s side to resume her treatment of his wounds. He was unconscious, either asleep or fainted, but he was calm, some of the colour having returned to his face. The sight of him made Haeseon ease out of his tension, sighing as his body sagged deeper into the warm waters.

“Darling Haeseon,” Talya said in a gentle tone and reached over to brush some of his hair away from his sweaty brow. “Can I ask you what happened when you came here last? Freyr told me you spoke with a woman who might have been Hel when you came for the supplies we needed for climbing.”

The tension came rushing back to Haeseon at the same time as Jihan jerked so hard he nearly shoved his head off his arm, turning back from where he’d been looking at the vǫlva. “He what?” the captain asked loudly, drawing the attention of just about everyone in the room.

From the corner of his eye, Haeseon could see Talya’s son seated against the wall by the doors, next to Ahrim, who was curled up in a nest of furs, sleeping. Freyr was staring at him, unyielding, but just like the shaman, his eyes were settled on the scars of Haeseon’s neck rather than his face.

Shame washed over him when he turned to Talya, who’d paid no heed to Jihan’s shocked outburst. She only peered back at him, wholly free of judgement or blame, and it only served to make Haeseon feel that much worse. “I-I don’t k-know,” he mumbled. Either by the bath’s warmth or the vǫlva’s touch, Haeseon’s voice came easier now, the ache in his throat subsided. He threw a nervous look at the shaman across the room before continuing. “S-she came to the sh-shop while we were buying s-supplies. She—I was looking a-at picks and she approached me a-and asked me if I needed h-help.”

The Northern Cardinal only hummed, her expression remaining unchanged. “I-I didn’t know it was h-her,” Haeseon said. He needed Talya to understand. “I d-didn’t know, b-but I said your name a-and that’s why sh-she knew we would—”

“No,” she interrupted and placed her hand over his lips to stop his rambling before it could become hysteric. “She wouldn’t have had the time. Even if she had heard it first from you, it would’ve taken her just as long as it did us to reach the top of the glacier. She wouldn’t have had time time to plan an ambush.” She smiled, bright as ever. “It is not your fault, sweet Haeseon.”

Part of Haeseon wondered if she said it only to appease him. Talya was kind that way; she seemed to hate seeing him upset almost as much as Jihan did. There was a thickness in his throat, one he knew would give way to tears if he did not swallow it, so he nodded meekly and cast down his gaze, and felt wholly undeserving of the gentle way Talya’s hand moved back to stroke his hair.

“What form does the goddess of the dead take?” she asked with curiosity, however somber it was. “Does she claim a body from her realm of death and use it for her own? I couldn’t see her face in the battle, bt her body…” She shuddered where she sat, although not from the northern cold. “Its smell was rotten,” she said, grimacing. “Decaying. Truly, she smelled like death.”

Haeseon shuddered, the tremor racking the whole of his body even in the warm water. He remembered meeting Hel in the shop and he remembered seeing her face amidst the battle on the glacier. Both times, he had thought her familiar, and now he knew why. “Sh-she looked like you, Talya,” he said, made nauseous by the mere thought. “Like you, b-but more… more twisted, and older. More horrible.”

The memory of how the goddess of death had touched his shoulder made him dig his fingers into his skin, as if it would erase Hel's touch off of him. Jihan stopped him quickly enough, frowning as he held Haeseon's hand in both of his own. “Don't do that, songbird,” he said quietly, pleading. “Don't hurt yourself.”

Haeseon nodded and drew a deep, quivering breath. “She looked like you,” he said to Talya, “but wrong.”

The gentle smile had long since faded from the Northern Cardinal's face, replaced by a look of shock, with anger rapidly seeping into her appalled expression. “If Hel has taken the spirit of my mother and dragged her from her rest,” she said, her voice growing darker for every word she spoke, “I will crush her chest and tear out her heart, and—”

The rest of her words dissolved into a string of words Haeseon could not understand. Talya rose briskly to her feet and stormed towards the door, loudly cursing the goddess of death as she went for everyone to hear. She was frightening in her anger, so much so that even the men of her own crew were quick to stand aside and let her pass, drawing up against the walls to avoid her rage.

On her way out, she called for her son, and even Freyr looked hesitant to go, lingering in his seat for as long as he dared before finally stood to follow.

They left a long silence in their wake, every pirate reluctant to break it should the Northern Cardinal return to take out her anger on whomever had dared speak. Haeseon settled first, sighing as he sank back against Jihan's arm and closed his eyes, beyond ready for a peaceful rest.

He wasn't quite allowed it; as soon as they'd broken out of their nervousness, Yeonshin turned away from the doors with a sour expression, lips curled down. “Did you see what Sabelsson did when the battle began?” he asked of the others. “How he took command of that girl's Blessing?”

It was hardly a thing Haeseon wanted to be reminded of, so he kept his eyes shut firmly and pretended not to hear. “It was horrible to watch,” Jun said lowly and threw a glance at Ahrim where she rested in her cot. “It was as if her Blessing had turned on her by the time he returned it to her. It kept flaring up to the surface without her control.”

“What kind of captain would do that to his own crewmen?” the surgeon hissed. “Sabelsdottír said every pirate in his crew bears a Blessing only for the sake of his own Blessing of Command. They exist merely to feed him their strength when he wants it.” He shuddered. “I can’t imagine why anyone would sail with a man like him. I don’t even wield a Blessing, but just seeing it happen was enough to—”

“You be quiet.”

Haeseon startled, the water of his bath splashing as he turned to Ahrim to watch her push herself upright on the furs. She was glaring at Yeonshin, ire twisting her face into a sneer. “Don’t speak of things you know nothing about,” she said harshly. Her voice was shrill, yet still weakened by her fever. “He took us away from the shit lives we led in our homes. He gave us purpose, and in return, we give him everything. We want to give him everything.” She smacked her hand against her chest, hard. “You may not understand,” she said, “but don’t assume what you do not know.”

In the silence that followed her words, Haeseon began to drift off. He pressed more firmly against Jihan’s arm in search of his warmth, humming in content when the captain kissed his temple and told him to sleep while he’d watch over him. Haeseon was eager to do just that, tired as he was of the fighting and arguing and the cold.

All he wanted to do was rest, and forget about everything that had happened since they’d come North.

-

/bursts into tears

HE'S SAFE Y'ALL JIHAN CAME FOR HIM AGAIN HE CAME TO FIND HIM AND HE'S SAFE AND SOUND AND WARM AGAIN

also

tf was up with that dream eH AND TALYA'S SHAMAN REALLY NEEDS TO GET A DICTIONARY AND TELL US WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON oh and freyr can still go choke on a cactus like i feel like that needs to happen relatively soon. yes. a really thorny cactus.

AND CAN I JUST SAY JIHAN HANDLING HAESEON WHO'S SO CAUGHT UP IN HIS INSTINCTS LIKE A PRO OH MY GOD JIHAN IS THE BEST HUSBAND I CAN'T—

watch me croak on my own excitement holy sHET this is getting so fucking interesting with the folklore and mention of gods and eVERYTHING

also also i have a feeling i've ended a previous chapter with these exact words bUT IT'S ALMOST 1AM NOW SO I'LL CHECK IT OUT TOMORROW AND SEE IF I SHOULD CHANGE IT

IN THE MEANTIME

HECK ME UP MAN

UNTIL NEXT WEEK

BYE


	18. chapter 17 - Between Storms

for once, i don't know what to say here, because all of my regular spazzing out happens at the end of the chapter, so......... enjoy? :D::D

-

Four days it took Seunggi and Hisashi’s fever to recede enough for them to be moved from the little town of Svalbard. With Yeonshin and the shaman of Talya’s crew working tirelessly to treat those who had been wounded in the battle against Hel, the rest of them recovered fast enough while the cold clung stubbornly to the two whose wounds had been worst. 

For Hisashi, it was a matter of infection, where the constant chill had settled within the wound in his side and given way for sickness to take hold. The feverish heat in him was worrying, as was the nausea that would claim him every time he attempted to eat, but thankfully, the vǫlva was well versed in dealing with such injuries. She cleaned his wounds with strong, clear liquor and smoothed an ointment over it, and changed his binds three times every day. She also brewed an herbal drink for him every four hours, one that never failed to make the swordsman grimace like he had swallowed tar.

Seunggi only woke up on the eve of the second day. On Yeonshin’s request, Haeseon was changing the damp cloth over his brow, soaking it in cold water to help bring down his fever, when the quartermaster hazily blinked out of his state of unconsciousness. His gaze was unfocused and heavy, but he turned his head and managed to slur, “‘M hungry, Haesae,” which had Haeseon startling so hard he knocked over the tub of water, turned away as he’d been when Seunggi woke.

The quartermaster chuckled at his shock before falling back to sleep for another hour or so. When he next opened his eyes, they were far clearer, as was his demand for food and drink.

On Jihan’s insistence, Haeseon spent all three days resting just as much as Seunggi did. He felt marginally better by the third, spending much of the first soaking his hands and feet in warm water over and over next to the fire burning in the hearth of the house they had settled in. When he tried to step outside, Talya ushered him back to his spot before he could as much as take one step into the fresh air, claiming it would make it all worse should he become cold again so soon after thawing.

Any attempts at insisting he was fine were wholly lost on Jihan, who took his hand and dragged him back to his seat by the hearth, and told him not to move unless he wanted Yeonshin to pin his robes to the stool with hammer and nail.

“Don’t pout at me, songbird,” the captain said dryly when Haeseon did just that, sulking. “I know all your tricks. No matter how you bat your eyelashes at me, I won’t balk this time.”

Haeseon sighed at that and silently cursed himself for making use of his charms to coax Jihan into agreement enough times for it to lose its desired effect. Had he been healthy, he might’ve managed to convince the captain with a kiss, but eager as he was to go outside and stretch his legs, he did not want to make his beloved sick. Thus all he was left to do was purse his lips in discontent even as he pulled his furs more tightly around himself and settled properly in his seat.

While the lot of them rested, Talya, Qasim, and Freyr and their crews kept vigil over the hamlet and its borders. They patrolled the edges of Qasim’s illusions and kept lookout for any signs of Hel or her followers, but the goddess of death had either been injured by the glacier’s fracture, or then she had left the island completely. 

Only on the morning of the crews’ departure did they release the townsfolk from the building in which they’d been trapped. Talya had made sure to provide them with wood for the fires and to keep them fed during the days they’d spent inside. She was the one to let them out, unperturbed by their obvious fear as they hurried past her on their way outside. The Northern Cardinal only smiled and spoke words that were likely an apology, and then they left, taking their illusion with them.

For the whole of the trek back to their ships, Xiao, in his Blessing’s form, bore Seunggi on his back to spare him from walking. It would’ve been an impossible task; while Yeonshin had bound his leg tightly with many layers of cloth, a broken bone required weeks of rest. The carpenter had been more than happy to offer his help, particularly after hearing Jihan say he was ready to carry his brother to the August on his own back.

Talya had offered to carry Seunggi in her Blessing’s form, and he had stuttered his way through his refusal, cheeks flushed and overwhelmed by the mere thought. The Northern Cardinal had smiled at his nervous state and playfully tousled his hair, which in turn had left him even more flustered.

Xiao also pulled a makeshift sled where Hisashi lay wrapped in a small mountain of furs. It wasn’t to say the swordsman couldn’t have walked—he had already been sitting upright and moving about inside the house in which they’d stayed, however labored his steps had been—but Yeonshin had refused to hear it. The surgeon had all but strapped him to the sled, shoving layer after layer of robes and blankets on top of him, both for warmth and to immobilise him in his weakened state.

When they arrived at the fjord where they had left their ships, they were quick to raise anchor and cast off. Lucya and those who had stayed aboard the August had kept her in good enough condition, clearing ice from around the hull whenever the water had become too cold. The sniper greeted them as calmly as she always did, although she did pull Seunggi into her arms and nearly smothered him all the while bemoaning the state of his leg, according to Jihan.

Just as when they had first sailed to Svalbard, Talya boarded the August while Qasim went with Freyr to guide their way back to Iceland. The boy’s discontent was clear as day by the way he glared at Haeseon as if everything in the world was his fault, but Haeseon ignored him. In fact, ever since they’d been rescued from the ravine in the glacier, Haeseon hadn’t so much as looked at the boy, even when he’d felt Freyr’s eyes burning into the side of his head.

Numb as he had been from the cold at the time, Haeseon had meant what he’d said; he was done playing nice with the boy who so clearly had no intentions of ever doing the same. Thus he smiled at Talya and did not lower his voice when he told her how happy he was she would sail with them.

The flicker of guilt in the far back of his mind was small enough to be stamped out with ease.

Unlike the last time Talya had boarded the August, she spent most of this voyage out of her Blessing’s form. Without her skinchanging, she could better speak to the rest of them, although she did spend most of her time in the infirmary with Haeseon, Seunggi, and Yeonshin.

And Hisashi, much to the swordsman’s dismay. He said nothing of the company, but his discontent was clear. He threw angry looks Haeseon’s way every time he woke from his rest, but just as he’d done with Freyr, Haeseon pretended he did not notice. It was more difficult, however; no matter how obnoxious Hisashi was, he was still part of the same crew as Haeseon, and Haeseon did want them to reconcile eventually.

Talya noticed the tension between them quickly enough, but she had the sense to hold her tongue and pretend it wasn’t hanging as heavy on her shoulders as it did on Haeseon’s.

“She realised your conflict almost immediately,” Yeonshin muttered on the second day, when Talya was out on deck, enjoying the brief moment of sunlight they’d been granted, “yet she is completely blind to what goes on between you and her son.”

“It’s different,” Haeseon argued half-heartedly. While he agreed with the surgeon, he still wanted to believe the best about his friend. “She knows Freyr better than any of us do. Perhaps she believes he doesn’t mean what he says. That he truly is only jesting.”

Neither Yeonshin nor Seunggi were convinced, but they said nothing more of it.

While at sea, Jun kept the fire burning in the galleys at all times and boiled hot water with herbs for tea. Or, more accurately, he instructed Daewon how to boil hot water with herbs for tea; the first mate refused to allow the cook to do more than order him around. Each time Jun attempted to rise from his seat to take over, Daewon pushed him right back down and told him to be still. Jun complained loudly and at length, but the first mate paid him no heed, nor did anyone else of those who took refuge in the galleys.

For all the days they sailed, Jihan took his task at keeping Haeseon warm very seriously. Wherever he was, the captain would bring him whatever spare furs they had received from Talya prior to their initial departure from Iceland and pull them around Haeseon’s shoulders until his posture felt twice as heavy as usual. He would make sure that whatever Haeseon drank, it was hot and steaming. Sometimes, Haeseon would even wake from his sleep when Jihan covered him in so many layers it made him sweat even in the winter chill.

By the fourth day at sea, when Haeseon had already been declared healthy by Yeonshin the previous night, his patience began to prickle, but when he told the captain to stop his fussing, that he was fine now, Jihan frowned and said seeing him with pale lips and feathers covered in frost had been a nightmare he never wanted to experience ever again, lest it break his heart in half.

It was hard to be irritated after that. On the contrary, he welcomed the captain’s doting and thanked him with a sweet smile. At night, he pressed close against Jihan’s chest and kissed him over and over, until both of them were buzzing with warmth.

When Iceland came into view on the horizon, Freyr’s ship guided them towards the same fjord they had sailed along when they’d first arrived in the North. This time, however, they made for the town that stood halfway up the bay, the one Talya had called her home.

“We need supplies and proper quarters,” she said and grinned in reply to Jihan’s clear hesitance to dock anywhere near a town of regular people. “Do not look so worried, Black Fox. Ísafjörður has been my family’s home for six generations, and for six generations, the women in my family have been pirates. They know our kind.”

It was true; when the crews stepped ashore, they were welcomed with none of the fear or loathing regular folk would show a band of outlaws. They flocked to the little harbour with smiles and eager words, most of all for Talya. The men of the town clapped her heartily on the shoulder before going to greet Qasim and Freyr, and the women hugged her tightly, every bit as motherly as Haeseon could’ve imagined.

Even the young children came running and latched onto Talya’s arms, screaming in delight when she lifted them off the ground and turned on the heel.

“Are you certain these are regular folk?” Yeonshin asked in bewilderment. They stood aside from the northerners, each and every one of them skeptical in their observation of the warm greeting the band of pirates received. “Home or not, I can’t fathom anyone in the East would welcome us in such a manner.”

Haeseon was struck with a bizarre urge to laugh, brought on by the ridiculous thought that the people of the village of Jeju would ever greet him and the August’s crew in the same manner with which the northerners welcomed Talya. “I can’t imagine it,” he said. “Then again, I don’t believe I’d want this kind of welcome from what used to be my home.”

The surgeon snorted at that. “I can’t help but agree,” he said dryly before turning back to the August to ensure Seunggi was being properly helped ashore.

Although they understood nothing of what the other said, once Talya had drawn the everyone’s attention to the August’s crew to introduce them, the townsfolk flocked around them as well, prattling on in words that made little sense to Haeseon’s ears. Jihan understood them well enough, he knew, but even the captain seemed to struggle to keep up, what with how many of them there were.

When the Northern Cardinal pulled Haeseon against her side, he knew just what she was about to do. Quickly, he pinched her in the side to interrupt her before she could even begin, and pleaded with her in a fervent whisper to not speak of the Rabid Conflagration or the storm that had brought his end. It was comical, truly, how petulant Talya looked upon his request. She stuck out her bottom lip and frowned, the most childlike pout settling over her face.

It lasted only for a matter of seconds before she was grinning again, but it made Haeseon laugh all the same. Thankfully, she heeded his plea and said nothing that pulled more attention to him, but Haeseon had an inkling this was only the first of many times he would have to stop her from telling the exaggerated tale she loved so much.

The three crews were quickly ushered off the docks and into the harbour, where they were led to a tavern and given rooms to sleep. Aside from Haeseon and Jihan, and Talya and Qasim, whom everyone agreed should have their own rooms—against Haeseon’s red-faced protests—the crews settled in with five or six pirates per room, pushing beds together or tossing a rag on the floor and dubbing it bedding.

Just as they had finished settling in, Talya barged into Haeseon and Jihan’s room with a crate in her arms and shooed the captain out, cheerfully telling him to go get himself something to drink from the innkeep. Confused, Jihan voiced his protests all the way until the Northern Cardinal closed the door in his face and turned to an even more confused Haeseon and set the crate down on the floor.

“Take your clothes off,” she said with the tone of someone speaking of the weather, and if Haeseon hadn’t been peering into the box, he would’ve been far more startled by the sudden command. The crate was full of robes of a far finer make than most of those he had seen the northerners wear. While their standard furs were made to repel the cold, it was obvious these were for festivities; they were thinner and more detailed, not to mention cleaner.

“There will be a feast to celebrate our arrival,” Talya said and pulled out the topmost garb to give it a critical eye. “You need to dress for it, darling Haeseon.”

“Do I?” Haeseon said with no small amount of bewildered amusement. Not only was he wholly unperturbed by the prospect of another feast—in the short time they had been in the North, Talya herself had hosted three of them. It seemed a common occurrence—but the fact that the Northern Cardinal was so eager to participate in such events amidst the chaos that was taking place across her seas was, for lack of a better word, amazing.

Talya snorted as if his question was wholly ridiculous. “Of course,” she said and tossed the furs aside with a shake of her head, dissatisfied. “Before this night, there has been far too much worry and anxiousness, and after, come the morning, we must prepare for battle once again.” When she noticed the alarm on Haeseon’s face, she was quick to explain. “No one is marching our way yet,” she said, smiling, “but they will come before long, and we must prepare. The chief of this town told me Iric Ried has looked for me with news of Elyas Lowe. My friend will come to us tomorrow, and whatever he tells us, I know a battle will be soon to follow.”

Haeseon settled at that, his sudden fright mollified. The thought of any more battles was hardly a pleasant one, but if Talya was confident enough to be carefree and cheerful after what had happened atop the glacier of Svalbard, she must’ve had a plan ready to put in motion.

Thus he did as told and began pulling off the many layers of robes he wore, smiling sheepishly when Talya arched an amused brow at him. “He worries,” Haeseon said with a shrug, although he was fond rather than bashful.

“He does,” the Northern Cardinal agreed with no small amount of smugness to her voice. “And I know how to make him stop.”

Haeseon paused halfway through shedding his innermost robe, taken aback by her sudden change in tone. “You—what?” he asked dumbly, feeling as if he was missing something very obvious.

“Have you ever bathed in hot springs?” Talya asked, ignoring his question to pose her own. “There are many volcanoes here that warm the water for natural springs. They are wonderful to bathe in, even in winter. You should take your Black Fox there after the feast.”

She finally found a garb she liked in the crate and came over to measure it against Haeseon’s chest. It resembled the shirt he usually wore, with an open back, only the black wool was longer in the front, reaching as far as his knees, while the collar was lined with furs of white and grey. It looked far too cold for the weather outside, but Haeseon saw an adjoining coat in the crate, one that would cover whatever skin the first garment left bare.

“I can do that,” he said, still not certain why the Northern Cardinal was speaking in such a lecherous voice. “But why would a bath stop him from worrying?”

The look she offered him was all but pitying, accompanied by an over-exaggerated sigh. “If you don’t know it, I won’t tell you,” she said slyly. She looked far too smug for Haeseon’s liking, as if she knew some secret he would have to find out on his own. He wanted to protest, but she tossed the garb at him before he could so much as open his mouth. “Change. I have pants and shoes for you as well.”

By the time Talya was done with him, Haeseon felt overdressed and shy beyond belief. She had insisted on decorating his wrists with gilded bangles and his hands with rings of iron and bronze, muted colours that stood out starkly against the jade of the ring Jihan had given him. Two silver chains hung from his neck, thin and lined with pearls. She had even attempted to cajole him into letting her smear paint of a light red across his bottom lip, but he had managed to hold his ground there and refused.

In Talya’s own words, she had only attempted to do him justice, but when they stepped into the main room of the tavern and Yeonshin quirked a brow and emitted a teasing whistle, Haeseon had half a mind to walk right back into his room and not emerge until Hel herself came knocking on his door.

“Look at you, canary,” Jun said, sounding every bit as smug as Talya had. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say this was your attempt to turn our captain into a stuttering fool. But I do know you better, which means,” he turned to the Northern Cardinal, “this is your attempt to turn our captain into a stuttering fool.”

She was wholly unperturbed by the accusation. “Where is he?” she asked without bothering to deny what was clearly obvious and looked around in the tavern. The cook, Yeonshin, and Daewon were the only ones there, along with some from Freyr’s and Talya’s own crew. “Did he leave already?”

“He did,” Daewon said, nodding. “He went with his brother to help him to the feast without hurting his leg. Gi persuaded Yeonshin here to let him attend even though he’s only still recovering.”

“That’s why I’m still here,” the surgeon said and took a mug of ale from the innkeep, raising it in salute. “I intend to get drunk to forgive myself for being so stupid as to fall for our quartermaster’s charms.”

Haeseon giggled at that, knowing those charms far too well. “I’m sure there will be more to drink at the feast,” he said, to which Talya gave a fervent nod, as if the opposite would mean disaster. “You’ll come, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Yeonshin said and took a long swallow, “but not before I’m pleasantly unaware of the fact that I’m supposed to be the only responsible bastard that sail aboard our bloody ship.”

“Leave his wallowing to me,” Jun said with a cheery grin and waved his hand to shoo Haeseon towards the door. “I’ll get him to the feast once he’s in a better mood.”

The sun, which had been setting already when they’d arrived, was gone completely when they emerged from the tavern again. The town of Ísafjörður was illuminated with long torches standing upright in the frozen ground, their flames flickering in the cold wind yet never losing their spark. The air was full of the scent of roasted meat, which made Haeseon’s stomach rumble. They hadn’t had much at all to eat while at sea, so for once, it was a feast he looked forward to.

Talya led him to the heart of the town, where the feast was to take place. Tables and stools had been carried out from the houses to form a circle around the fires where the food was being cooked, either in pots or roasting on a spit above the coals. The tables were set with bowls and tankards for drink, with heavy barrels of ale stacked on each one. More were being carried out from the houses, and if Haeseon hadn’t seen the northern pirates drink firsthand, he might’ve wondered if the townsfolk were expecting an army to be seated for their feast.

He found Seunggi sitting comfortably by one of the fires, in a chair with a proper backrest as compared to the rest. His leg was propped up on a short stool in front of him both to avoid the cold of the earth, but to keep the limb raised as Yeonshin had told him. He was covered in furs and comfortable blankets, with a cheery grin on his face as he listened to Xiao complain about his own little stool creaking every time he sat down.

“Where is the Black Fox?” Talya asked in greeting, turning her head this way and that in search. Haeseon rolled his eyes at her, disbelieving in the face of her enthusiasm.

Startled by their sudden appearance, Seunggi nearly spilled some of his mead from the cup in his hands in his hurry to turn. He parted his lips to answer her, but then his eyes landed on Haeseon and grew wide. “He’s helping the townsfolk carry some things,” he said without looking at Talya. A smile slowly spread his lips, an exact mirror of the one that had graced Jun’s lips not minutes prior. “Well,” he drawled, “don’t you look pretty, Haesae.”

“Doesn’t he?” Talya cooed and squeezed his arm. “I thought these furs might suit him. They’re my most expensive ones, made from the mane of a snow wolf. Qasim bought them for me from a famous leatherworker in Norway.” Her smile was as bright as Seunggi’s. “I wore them when I wed Qasim.”

Haeseon’s eyes widened with shock. “You what?” he exclaimed much louder than intended. He looked down at himself, his previous thoughts of being overdressed growing tenfold. “I can’t—why would you let me wear something so precious?”

The Northern Cardinal only shrugged, as if it was hardly a thing to be so worried about. “I thought they would suit you best,” she said easily, still looking around. “The others would’ve been too loose or too tight, or not good enough for—” She interrupted herself halfway through her words, the grin on her lips growing alarmingly wide. “Finally,” she said before releasing Haeseon’s arm in order to bound over to whatever it was she had seen. “Choi Jihan!”

Haeseon wasn’t sure just what it was that made him so nervous at the prospect of being seen by his beloved in robes of such meaning. Overcome by an urge to hide, he watched the Northern Cardinal all but skip over to where Jihan had emerged from one of the houses with a crate of potatoes in his arms. “Oh gods,” he said with a groan when Talya took the crate from Jihan and jerked her head Haeseon’s way in a manner that was as far from subtle as it could be, the whole of her upper body moving along with it.

Behind him, Seunggi was muffling his laughter into his hands, his cup long forgotten on the armrest of his seat.

To save Jihan from his obvious confusion, Haeseon hurried over to the two with no small amount of mortification rushing in his veins. “You’re being ridiculous, Talya,” he said—whined was more like it—and pushed her aside, resolutely pretending he couldn’t feel the captain’s eyes on him. “Why are you trying to accomplish?”

“I’m doing you a favour, darling Haeseon,” she said cheerily and dug her heels into the ground to remain where she was.

“I think a far better favour would be if you went away now and spent the rest of the evening peeling those potatoes,” Haeseon hissed, batting at her until she finally gave up and let herself be nudged away, cackling as she went. “Honestly, I can’t understand her at times…” He heaved a long-suffering sigh and took a moment or two to prepare himself for what was to come once he turned around to face his beloved. “Don’t mind her, Jihan,” he began and straightened up, “she had one of her odd ideas come to her again, so don’t—”

A pair of strong arms curled around his waist and pulled him back against a solid chest, the sudden closeness interrupting him in favour of uttering a noise of surprise. It made Jihan chuckle against his shoulder and Haeseon lightly swatted at one of his arms in reprimand, even though he was wholly content in his beloved’s arms.

“You look lovely, songbird,” Jihan murmured against his neck, lips pressing against the flushed skin there. His hands pressed against his stomach before retreating enough to settle on his waist, where his thumbs drew circles into the fabric of his fine robes. “So very lovely.”

Haeseon shuddered with warmth and turned around in the captain’s embrace, only to immediately bow his head until his brow rested against Jihan’s shoulder. “I don’t know why Talya gave me these to wear,” he said with a huff. “No one else is wearing anything festive.”

All he got in return was a thoughtful hum, but by the sound of it, Jihan did not mind the Northern Cardinal’s whims in the slightest. With one hand placed firmly on Haeseon’s hip, the captain raised his other to run his fingers through the furs of his collar before slipping beneath them to carefully trace along the scars on the side of his neck. His touch was cold, the winter chill clinging to the ivory of his prosthetic limb, but it filled Haeseon’s chest with a pleasant thrum.

“Are you cold, songbird?” Jihan asked when he was overcome by another shiver. The captain’s hand stilled against his neck, and Haeseon couldn’t help but smile, knowing his beloved would give him his own robes in an instant should he say he wanted them.

“No,” he said instead and raised his head to press his lips against Jihan’s cheek. “You make me warm.”

The captain groaned, leaning forward to rest his brow against Haeseon’s. “That’s not fair,” he muttered, yet he smiled when Haeseon emitted a chiming laughter. When he sobered up, Jihan kissed him, the touch ato his neck growing firmer, if only by a fraction. Some ways behind them, someone whistled sharply while others snickered in glee, but Haeseon ignored them in favour of reveling in the closeness of his beloved and the surge of warmth his kiss set off through his veins.

“Do you think,” Jihan began when he leaned back enough to speak. He did not go far; their breaths remained as one, their lips a mere hairsbreadth apart. “Do you think Sabelsdottír would let you keep these furs after the feast?”

Upon his prompt, Haeseon realised precisely why Talya had given him these robes to wear. This was the effect she had desired, for gods know what reason, and it had embarrassment welling up in his chest, until his ears and cheeks were bright red. She was just like Seunggi, who had done this time and time again; truly, he should’ve realised it sooner.

It explained the hot springs as well. Rather, it made the notion of bathing in the hot springs painfully obvious.

“I fear she might insist I keep them,” he said with a sigh. He shook his head to dissuade Jihan’s confusion at his words, smiling as he reached up to take the captain’s hand. “For now, let’s enjoy the feast, shall we? Let’s enjoy our peace while we have it.”

He knew their tranquility would fade before long, but his worry of what was to come stayed in the far back of his mind all the same. Like Seunggi once had told him, they had to seize joy where they could find it, even if it was by something as simple as good food and drink, and the company of those they loved most.

-

me @ me: okay so the beginning of this chapter should literally just be like three paragraphs of recap of them sailing back to iceland, short and sweet

me, four pages worth of recap later: perfect. i’m a goddamn moron.

also me @ me while writing that last scene: this is not an a/b/o okay remember this is not an a/b/o repeat after me this is nOT—

:D

in all seriousness tho there were supposed to be two more scenes in this chapter, both of which are like sUPER IMPORTANT, but since i’m trying to, uh, control myself and keep these chapters “book-length”, i figured i should probably reign myself in a little and nOT make this chapter be like 20k words………. i know y’all probably wouldn’t have minded bUT :D

still, you know, it feels kinda nice to just…… have some peace after all the shet that’s been happening and before all the shet that’s gonna happen, so like… yeh i like this chapter uwu 

also talya is all literally of us at heart dhsHSGD SHE REALLY OUT THERE TRYING TO GET JIHAN AND HAESEON SOME ALONE TIME JSHDSJHD

she's done with them getting blue-balled, just like alllllllll the rest of us u.u

WILL JIHAE FINALLY GET LAID? STAY TUNED FOR NEXT WEEK'S CHAPTER AYYYYYYYYY—

for once, i don't know what to say here, because all of my regular spazzing out happens at the end of the chapter, so......... enjoy? :D::D

-

Four days it took Seunggi and Hisashi’s fever to recede enough for them to be moved from the little town of Svalbard. With Yeonshin and the shaman of Talya’s crew working tirelessly to treat those who had been wounded in the battle against Hel, the rest of them recovered fast enough while the cold clung stubbornly to the two whose wounds had been worst. 

For Hisashi, it was a matter of infection, where the constant chill had settled within the wound in his side and given way for sickness to take hold. The feverish heat in him was worrying, as was the nausea that would claim him every time he attempted to eat, but thankfully, the vǫlva was well versed in dealing with such injuries. She cleaned his wounds with strong, clear liquor and smoothed an ointment over it, and changed his binds three times every day. She also brewed an herbal drink for him every four hours, one that never failed to make the swordsman grimace like he had swallowed tar.

Seunggi only woke up on the eve of the second day. On Yeonshin’s request, Haeseon was changing the damp cloth over his brow, soaking it in cold water to help bring down his fever, when the quartermaster hazily blinked out of his state of unconsciousness. His gaze was unfocused and heavy, but he turned his head and managed to slur, “‘M hungry, Haesae,” which had Haeseon startling so hard he knocked over the tub of water, turned away as he’d been when Seunggi woke.

The quartermaster chuckled at his shock before falling back to sleep for another hour or so. When he next opened his eyes, they were far clearer, as was his demand for food and drink.

On Jihan’s insistence, Haeseon spent all three days resting just as much as Seunggi did. He felt marginally better by the third, spending much of the first soaking his hands and feet in warm water over and over next to the fire burning in the hearth of the house they had settled in. When he tried to step outside, Talya ushered him back to his spot before he could as much as take one step into the fresh air, claiming it would make it all worse should he become cold again so soon after thawing.

Any attempts at insisting he was fine were wholly lost on Jihan, who took his hand and dragged him back to his seat by the hearth, and told him not to move unless he wanted Yeonshin to pin his robes to the stool with hammer and nail.

“Don’t pout at me, songbird,” the captain said dryly when Haeseon did just that, sulking. “I know all your tricks. No matter how you bat your eyelashes at me, I won’t balk this time.”

Haeseon sighed at that and silently cursed himself for making use of his charms to coax Jihan into agreement enough times for it to lose its desired effect. Had he been healthy, he might’ve managed to convince the captain with a kiss, but eager as he was to go outside and stretch his legs, he did not want to make his beloved sick. Thus all he was left to do was purse his lips in discontent even as he pulled his furs more tightly around himself and settled properly in his seat.

While the lot of them rested, Talya, Qasim, and Freyr and their crews kept vigil over the hamlet and its borders. They patrolled the edges of Qasim’s illusions and kept lookout for any signs of Hel or her followers, but the goddess of death had either been injured by the glacier’s fracture, or then she had left the island completely. 

Only on the morning of the crews’ departure did they release the townsfolk from the building in which they’d been trapped. Talya had made sure to provide them with wood for the fires and to keep them fed during the days they’d spent inside. She was the one to let them out, unperturbed by their obvious fear as they hurried past her on their way outside. The Northern Cardinal only smiled and spoke words that were likely an apology, and then they left, taking their illusion with them.

For the whole of the trek back to their ships, Xiao, in his Blessing’s form, bore Seunggi on his back to spare him from walking. It would’ve been an impossible task; while Yeonshin had bound his leg tightly with many layers of cloth, a broken bone required weeks of rest. The carpenter had been more than happy to offer his help, particularly after hearing Jihan say he was ready to carry his brother to the August on his own back.

Talya had offered to carry Seunggi in her Blessing’s form, and he had stuttered his way through his refusal, cheeks flushed and overwhelmed by the mere thought. The Northern Cardinal had smiled at his nervous state and playfully tousled his hair, which in turn had left him even more flustered.

Xiao also pulled a makeshift sled where Hisashi lay wrapped in a small mountain of furs. It wasn’t to say the swordsman couldn’t have walked—he had already been sitting upright and moving about inside the house in which they’d stayed, however labored his steps had been—but Yeonshin had refused to hear it. The surgeon had all but strapped him to the sled, shoving layer after layer of robes and blankets on top of him, both for warmth and to immobilise him in his weakened state.

When they arrived at the fjord where they had left their ships, they were quick to raise anchor and cast off. Lucya and those who had stayed aboard the August had kept her in good enough condition, clearing ice from around the hull whenever the water had become too cold. The sniper greeted them as calmly as she always did, although she did pull Seunggi into her arms and nearly smothered him all the while bemoaning the state of his leg, according to Jihan.

Just as when they had first sailed to Svalbard, Talya boarded the August while Qasim went with Freyr to guide their way back to Iceland. The boy’s discontent was clear as day by the way he glared at Haeseon as if everything in the world was his fault, but Haeseon ignored him. In fact, ever since they’d been rescued from the ravine in the glacier, Haeseon hadn’t so much as looked at the boy, even when he’d felt Freyr’s eyes burning into the side of his head.

Numb as he had been from the cold at the time, Haeseon had meant what he’d said; he was done playing nice with the boy who so clearly had no intentions of ever doing the same. Thus he smiled at Talya and did not lower his voice when he told her how happy he was she would sail with them.

The flicker of guilt in the far back of his mind was small enough to be stamped out with ease.

Unlike the last time Talya had boarded the August, she spent most of this voyage out of her Blessing’s form. Without her skinchanging, she could better speak to the rest of them, although she did spend most of her time in the infirmary with Haeseon, Seunggi, and Yeonshin.

And Hisashi, much to the swordsman’s dismay. He said nothing of the company, but his discontent was clear. He threw angry looks Haeseon’s way every time he woke from his rest, but just as he’d done with Freyr, Haeseon pretended he did not notice. It was more difficult, however; no matter how obnoxious Hisashi was, he was still part of the same crew as Haeseon, and Haeseon did want them to reconcile eventually.

Talya noticed the tension between them quickly enough, but she had the sense to hold her tongue and pretend it wasn’t hanging as heavy on her shoulders as it did on Haeseon’s.

“She realised your conflict almost immediately,” Yeonshin muttered on the second day, when Talya was out on deck, enjoying the brief moment of sunlight they’d been granted, “yet she is completely blind to what goes on between you and her son.”

“It’s different,” Haeseon argued half-heartedly. While he agreed with the surgeon, he still wanted to believe the best about his friend. “She knows Freyr better than any of us do. Perhaps she believes he doesn’t mean what he says. That he truly is only jesting.”

Neither Yeonshin nor Seunggi were convinced, but they said nothing more of it.

While at sea, Jun kept the fire burning in the galleys at all times and boiled hot water with herbs for tea. Or, more accurately, he instructed Daewon how to boil hot water with herbs for tea; the first mate refused to allow the cook to do more than order him around. Each time Jun attempted to rise from his seat to take over, Daewon pushed him right back down and told him to be still. Jun complained loudly and at length, but the first mate paid him no heed, nor did anyone else of those who took refuge in the galleys.

For all the days they sailed, Jihan took his task at keeping Haeseon warm very seriously. Wherever he was, the captain would bring him whatever spare furs they had received from Talya prior to their initial departure from Iceland and pull them around Haeseon’s shoulders until his posture felt twice as heavy as usual. He would make sure that whatever Haeseon drank, it was hot and steaming. Sometimes, Haeseon would even wake from his sleep when Jihan covered him in so many layers it made him sweat even in the winter chill.

By the fourth day at sea, when Haeseon had already been declared healthy by Yeonshin the previous night, his patience began to prickle, but when he told the captain to stop his fussing, that he was fine now, Jihan frowned and said seeing him with pale lips and feathers covered in frost had been a nightmare he never wanted to experience ever again, lest it break his heart in half.

It was hard to be irritated after that. On the contrary, he welcomed the captain’s doting and thanked him with a sweet smile. At night, he pressed close against Jihan’s chest and kissed him over and over, until both of them were buzzing with warmth.

When Iceland came into view on the horizon, Freyr’s ship guided them towards the same fjord they had sailed along when they’d first arrived in the North. This time, however, they made for the town that stood halfway up the bay, the one Talya had called her home.

“We need supplies and proper quarters,” she said and grinned in reply to Jihan’s clear hesitance to dock anywhere near a town of regular people. “Do not look so worried, Black Fox. Ísafjörður has been my family’s home for six generations, and for six generations, the women in my family have been pirates. They know our kind.”

It was true; when the crews stepped ashore, they were welcomed with none of the fear or loathing regular folk would show a band of outlaws. They flocked to the little harbour with smiles and eager words, most of all for Talya. The men of the town clapped her heartily on the shoulder before going to greet Qasim and Freyr, and the women hugged her tightly, every bit as motherly as Haeseon could’ve imagined.

Even the young children came running and latched onto Talya’s arms, screaming in delight when she lifted them off the ground and turned on the heel.

“Are you certain these are regular folk?” Yeonshin asked in bewilderment. They stood aside from the northerners, each and every one of them skeptical in their observation of the warm greeting the band of pirates received. “Home or not, I can’t fathom anyone in the East would welcome us in such a manner.”

Haeseon was struck with a bizarre urge to laugh, brought on by the ridiculous thought that the people of the village of Jeju would ever greet him and the August’s crew in the same manner with which the northerners welcomed Talya. “I can’t imagine it,” he said. “Then again, I don’t believe I’d want this kind of welcome from what used to be my home.”

The surgeon snorted at that. “I can’t help but agree,” he said dryly before turning back to the August to ensure Seunggi was being properly helped ashore.

Although they understood nothing of what the other said, once Talya had drawn the everyone’s attention to the August’s crew to introduce them, the townsfolk flocked around them as well, prattling on in words that made little sense to Haeseon’s ears. Jihan understood them well enough, he knew, but even the captain seemed to struggle to keep up, what with how many of them there were.

When the Northern Cardinal pulled Haeseon against her side, he knew just what she was about to do. Quickly, he pinched her in the side to interrupt her before she could even begin, and pleaded with her in a fervent whisper to not speak of the Rabid Conflagration or the storm that had brought his end. It was comical, truly, how petulant Talya looked upon his request. She stuck out her bottom lip and frowned, the most childlike pout settling over her face.

It lasted only for a matter of seconds before she was grinning again, but it made Haeseon laugh all the same. Thankfully, she heeded his plea and said nothing that pulled more attention to him, but Haeseon had an inkling this was only the first of many times he would have to stop her from telling the exaggerated tale she loved so much.

The three crews were quickly ushered off the docks and into the harbour, where they were led to a tavern and given rooms to sleep. Aside from Haeseon and Jihan, and Talya and Qasim, whom everyone agreed should have their own rooms—against Haeseon’s red-faced protests—the crews settled in with five or six pirates per room, pushing beds together or tossing a rag on the floor and dubbing it bedding.

Just as they had finished settling in, Talya barged into Haeseon and Jihan’s room with a crate in her arms and shooed the captain out, cheerfully telling him to go get himself something to drink from the innkeep. Confused, Jihan voiced his protests all the way until the Northern Cardinal closed the door in his face and turned to an even more confused Haeseon and set the crate down on the floor.

“Take your clothes off,” she said with the tone of someone speaking of the weather, and if Haeseon hadn’t been peering into the box, he would’ve been far more startled by the sudden command. The crate was full of robes of a far finer make than most of those he had seen the northerners wear. While their standard furs were made to repel the cold, it was obvious these were for festivities; they were thinner and more detailed, not to mention cleaner.

“There will be a feast to celebrate our arrival,” Talya said and pulled out the topmost garb to give it a critical eye. “You need to dress for it, darling Haeseon.”

“Do I?” Haeseon said with no small amount of bewildered amusement. Not only was he wholly unperturbed by the prospect of another feast—in the short time they had been in the North, Talya herself had hosted three of them. It seemed a common occurrence—but the fact that the Northern Cardinal was so eager to participate in such events amidst the chaos that was taking place across her seas was, for lack of a better word, amazing.

Talya snorted as if his question was wholly ridiculous. “Of course,” she said and tossed the furs aside with a shake of her head, dissatisfied. “Before this night, there has been far too much worry and anxiousness, and after, come the morning, we must prepare for battle once again.” When she noticed the alarm on Haeseon’s face, she was quick to explain. “No one is marching our way yet,” she said, smiling, “but they will come before long, and we must prepare. The chief of this town told me Iric Ried has looked for me with news of Elyas Lowe. My friend will come to us tomorrow, and whatever he tells us, I know a battle will be soon to follow.”

Haeseon settled at that, his sudden fright mollified. The thought of any more battles was hardly a pleasant one, but if Talya was confident enough to be carefree and cheerful after what had happened atop the glacier of Svalbard, she must’ve had a plan ready to put in motion.

Thus he did as told and began pulling off the many layers of robes he wore, smiling sheepishly when Talya arched an amused brow at him. “He worries,” Haeseon said with a shrug, although he was fond rather than bashful.

“He does,” the Northern Cardinal agreed with no small amount of smugness to her voice. “And I know how to make him stop.”

Haeseon paused halfway through shedding his innermost robe, taken aback by her sudden change in tone. “You—what?” he asked dumbly, feeling as if he was missing something very obvious.

“Have you ever bathed in hot springs?” Talya asked, ignoring his question to pose her own. “There are many volcanoes here that warm the water for natural springs. They are wonderful to bathe in, even in winter. You should take your Black Fox there after the feast.”

She finally found a garb she liked in the crate and came over to measure it against Haeseon’s chest. It resembled the shirt he usually wore, with an open back, only the black wool was longer in the front, reaching as far as his knees, while the collar was lined with furs of white and grey. It looked far too cold for the weather outside, but Haeseon saw an adjoining coat in the crate, one that would cover whatever skin the first garment left bare.

“I can do that,” he said, still not certain why the Northern Cardinal was speaking in such a lecherous voice. “But why would a bath stop him from worrying?”

The look she offered him was all but pitying, accompanied by an over-exaggerated sigh. “If you don’t know it, I won’t tell you,” she said slyly. She looked far too smug for Haeseon’s liking, as if she knew some secret he would have to find out on his own. He wanted to protest, but she tossed the garb at him before he could so much as open his mouth. “Change. I have pants and shoes for you as well.”

By the time Talya was done with him, Haeseon felt overdressed and shy beyond belief. She had insisted on decorating his wrists with gilded bangles and his hands with rings of iron and bronze, muted colours that stood out starkly against the jade of the ring Jihan had given him. Two silver chains hung from his neck, thin and lined with pearls. She had even attempted to cajole him into letting her smear paint of a light red across his bottom lip, but he had managed to hold his ground there and refused.

In Talya’s own words, she had only attempted to do him justice, but when they stepped into the main room of the tavern and Yeonshin quirked a brow and emitted a teasing whistle, Haeseon had half a mind to walk right back into his room and not emerge until Hel herself came knocking on his door.

“Look at you, canary,” Jun said, sounding every bit as smug as Talya had. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say this was your attempt to turn our captain into a stuttering fool. But I do know you better, which means,” he turned to the Northern Cardinal, “this is your attempt to turn our captain into a stuttering fool.”

She was wholly unperturbed by the accusation. “Where is he?” she asked without bothering to deny what was clearly obvious and looked around in the tavern. The cook, Yeonshin, and Daewon were the only ones there, along with some from Freyr’s and Talya’s own crew. “Did he leave already?”

“He did,” Daewon said, nodding. “He went with his brother to help him to the feast without hurting his leg. Gi persuaded Yeonshin here to let him attend even though he’s only still recovering.”

“That’s why I’m still here,” the surgeon said and took a mug of ale from the innkeep, raising it in salute. “I intend to get drunk to forgive myself for being so stupid as to fall for our quartermaster’s charms.”

Haeseon giggled at that, knowing those charms far too well. “I’m sure there will be more to drink at the feast,” he said, to which Talya gave a fervent nod, as if the opposite would mean disaster. “You’ll come, won’t you?”

“Yes,” Yeonshin said and took a long swallow, “but not before I’m pleasantly unaware of the fact that I’m supposed to be the only responsible bastard that sail aboard our bloody ship.”

“Leave his wallowing to me,” Jun said with a cheery grin and waved his hand to shoo Haeseon towards the door. “I’ll get him to the feast once he’s in a better mood.”

The sun, which had been setting already when they’d arrived, was gone completely when they emerged from the tavern again. The town of Ísafjörður was illuminated with long torches standing upright in the frozen ground, their flames flickering in the cold wind yet never losing their spark. The air was full of the scent of roasted meat, which made Haeseon’s stomach rumble. They hadn’t had much at all to eat while at sea, so for once, it was a feast he looked forward to.

Talya led him to the heart of the town, where the feast was to take place. Tables and stools had been carried out from the houses to form a circle around the fires where the food was being cooked, either in pots or roasting on a spit above the coals. The tables were set with bowls and tankards for drink, with heavy barrels of ale stacked on each one. More were being carried out from the houses, and if Haeseon hadn’t seen the northern pirates drink firsthand, he might’ve wondered if the townsfolk were expecting an army to be seated for their feast.

He found Seunggi sitting comfortably by one of the fires, in a chair with a proper backrest as compared to the rest. His leg was propped up on a short stool in front of him both to avoid the cold of the earth, but to keep the limb raised as Yeonshin had told him. He was covered in furs and comfortable blankets, with a cheery grin on his face as he listened to Xiao complain about his own little stool creaking every time he sat down.

“Where is the Black Fox?” Talya asked in greeting, turning her head this way and that in search. Haeseon rolled his eyes at her, disbelieving in the face of her enthusiasm.

Startled by their sudden appearance, Seunggi nearly spilled some of his mead from the cup in his hands in his hurry to turn. He parted his lips to answer her, but then his eyes landed on Haeseon and grew wide. “He’s helping the townsfolk carry some things,” he said without looking at Talya. A smile slowly spread his lips, an exact mirror of the one that had graced Jun’s lips not minutes prior. “Well,” he drawled, “don’t you look pretty, Haesae.”

“Doesn’t he?” Talya cooed and squeezed his arm. “I thought these furs might suit him. They’re my most expensive ones, made from the mane of a snow wolf. Qasim bought them for me from a famous leatherworker in Norway.” Her smile was as bright as Seunggi’s. “I wore them when I wed Qasim.”

Haeseon’s eyes widened with shock. “You what?” he exclaimed much louder than intended. He looked down at himself, his previous thoughts of being overdressed growing tenfold. “I can’t—why would you let me wear something so precious?”

The Northern Cardinal only shrugged, as if it was hardly a thing to be so worried about. “I thought they would suit you best,” she said easily, still looking around. “The others would’ve been too loose or too tight, or not good enough for—” She interrupted herself halfway through her words, the grin on her lips growing alarmingly wide. “Finally,” she said before releasing Haeseon’s arm in order to bound over to whatever it was she had seen. “Choi Jihan!”

Haeseon wasn’t sure just what it was that made him so nervous at the prospect of being seen by his beloved in robes of such meaning. Overcome by an urge to hide, he watched the Northern Cardinal all but skip over to where Jihan had emerged from one of the houses with a crate of potatoes in his arms. “Oh gods,” he said with a groan when Talya took the crate from Jihan and jerked her head Haeseon’s way in a manner that was as far from subtle as it could be, the whole of her upper body moving along with it.

Behind him, Seunggi was muffling his laughter into his hands, his cup long forgotten on the armrest of his seat.

To save Jihan from his obvious confusion, Haeseon hurried over to the two with no small amount of mortification rushing in his veins. “You’re being ridiculous, Talya,” he said—whined was more like it—and pushed her aside, resolutely pretending he couldn’t feel the captain’s eyes on him. “Why are you trying to accomplish?”

“I’m doing you a favour, darling Haeseon,” she said cheerily and dug her heels into the ground to remain where she was.

“I think a far better favour would be if you went away now and spent the rest of the evening peeling those potatoes,” Haeseon hissed, batting at her until she finally gave up and let herself be nudged away, cackling as she went. “Honestly, I can’t understand her at times…” He heaved a long-suffering sigh and took a moment or two to prepare himself for what was to come once he turned around to face his beloved. “Don’t mind her, Jihan,” he began and straightened up, “she had one of her odd ideas come to her again, so don’t—”

A pair of strong arms curled around his waist and pulled him back against a solid chest, the sudden closeness interrupting him in favour of uttering a noise of surprise. It made Jihan chuckle against his shoulder and Haeseon lightly swatted at one of his arms in reprimand, even though he was wholly content in his beloved’s arms.

“You look lovely, songbird,” Jihan murmured against his neck, lips pressing against the flushed skin there. His hands pressed against his stomach before retreating enough to settle on his waist, where his thumbs drew circles into the fabric of his fine robes. “So very lovely.”

Haeseon shuddered with warmth and turned around in the captain’s embrace, only to immediately bow his head until his brow rested against Jihan’s shoulder. “I don’t know why Talya gave me these to wear,” he said with a huff. “No one else is wearing anything festive.”

All he got in return was a thoughtful hum, but by the sound of it, Jihan did not mind the Northern Cardinal’s whims in the slightest. With one hand placed firmly on Haeseon’s hip, the captain raised his other to run his fingers through the furs of his collar before slipping beneath them to carefully trace along the scars on the side of his neck. His touch was cold, the winter chill clinging to the ivory of his prosthetic limb, but it filled Haeseon’s chest with a pleasant thrum.

“Are you cold, songbird?” Jihan asked when he was overcome by another shiver. The captain’s hand stilled against his neck, and Haeseon couldn’t help but smile, knowing his beloved would give him his own robes in an instant should he say he wanted them.

“No,” he said instead and raised his head to press his lips against Jihan’s cheek. “You make me warm.”

The captain groaned, leaning forward to rest his brow against Haeseon’s. “That’s not fair,” he muttered, yet he smiled when Haeseon emitted a chiming laughter. When he sobered up, Jihan kissed him, the touch ato his neck growing firmer, if only by a fraction. Some ways behind them, someone whistled sharply while others snickered in glee, but Haeseon ignored them in favour of reveling in the closeness of his beloved and the surge of warmth his kiss set off through his veins.

“Do you think,” Jihan began when he leaned back enough to speak. He did not go far; their breaths remained as one, their lips a mere hairsbreadth apart. “Do you think Sabelsdottír would let you keep these furs after the feast?”

Upon his prompt, Haeseon realised precisely why Talya had given him these robes to wear. This was the effect she had desired, for gods know what reason, and it had embarrassment welling up in his chest, until his ears and cheeks were bright red. She was just like Seunggi, who had done this time and time again; truly, he should’ve realised it sooner.

It explained the hot springs as well. Rather, it made the notion of bathing in the hot springs painfully obvious.

“I fear she might insist I keep them,” he said with a sigh. He shook his head to dissuade Jihan’s confusion at his words, smiling as he reached up to take the captain’s hand. “For now, let’s enjoy the feast, shall we? Let’s enjoy our peace while we have it.”

He knew their tranquility would fade before long, but his worry of what was to come stayed in the far back of his mind all the same. Like Seunggi once had told him, they had to seize joy where they could find it, even if it was by something as simple as good food and drink, and the company of those they loved most.

-

me @ me: okay so the beginning of this chapter should literally just be like three paragraphs of recap of them sailing back to iceland, short and sweet

me, four pages worth of recap later: perfect. i’m a goddamn moron.

also me @ me while writing that last scene: this is not an a/b/o okay remember this is not an a/b/o repeat after me this is nOT—

:D

in all seriousness tho there were supposed to be two more scenes in this chapter, both of which are like sUPER IMPORTANT, but since i’m trying to, uh, control myself and keep these chapters “book-length”, i figured i should probably reign myself in a little and nOT make this chapter be like 20k words………. i know y’all probably wouldn’t have minded bUT :D

still, you know, it feels kinda nice to just…… have some peace after all the shet that’s been happening and before all the shet that’s gonna happen, so like… yeh i like this chapter uwu 

also talya is all literally of us at heart dhsHSGD SHE REALLY OUT THERE TRYING TO GET JIHAN AND HAESEON SOME ALONE TIME JSHDSJHD

she's done with them getting blue-balled, just like alllllllll the rest of us u.u

WILL JIHAE FINALLY GET LAID? STAY TUNED FOR NEXT WEEK'S CHAPTER AYYYYYYYYY—


	19. chapter 18 - Beneath the Northern Lights

OKAY SO BRACE YOURSELVES FOR MY MOST FAVORITE AND MY MOST HATED CHAPTER OF THE BOOK SO FAR WOOOOOOOOOO

MOOSIC:

Danheim - Berserkir (jshjshd ignore like the first 5 seconds they don't really fit the mood xD)

The Northerner Diaries - Njól (okay so this is very important um i'm gonna try to leave a marker for you when to start playing this because hOO BOI IT'S IMPORTANT (okay so i attached the link to two dot at the end of a paragraphsjhdjsdh let's see if you'll notice it when you get to the important part)

OKAY HERE WE GO

-

Haeseon couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so stuffed from a meal. The feast had carried on for hours now, and he had hardly left his seat at all, devouring every new serving of meat or boiled potatoes the townsfolk of Ísafjörður brought to their table. Even the stranger dishes, he reached for without pause, although he did pass the plate of odd, cube-shaped morsels which, according to Jihan, was fermented shark meat.

There were limits to everything, even his hunger after going without proper food for so long.

He had been hesitant at first, only picking small amounts of every serving the townsfolk prepared; hungry as he was, Ísafjörður was not a very big town, and feeding three pirate crews would surely chew through whatever supplies the inhabitants had stored for winter. Haeseon didn’t want to be the cause of the townsfolk going without food once he and the other visitors had gone, so he’d eaten sparsely, even with his mouth watering at the scent of herb-roasted sheep.

When the townsfolk had noticed his hesitance, they had taken it upon themselves to plate his food for him, loading it so full it threatened to spill over the edges, and when he still had been apprehensive, Talya had put an end to it quick as a wink. Not only did she encourage the townsfolk to keep feeding him until he was so full he’d roll out of his seat, she also swore to go hunting the following day if he was so worried for their storage.

It had been hard to refuse after that, so Haeseon had given up and allowed himself to enjoy the feast to the fullest.

He didn’t drink much of the mead, finding it far too strong for his tastes; he only took small sips if a bite of food had been too dry. The rest of the crew did not share his carefulness, nor did any of the other pirates. They drank deep and grew louder for every tankard they emptied, and by the time some of the townsfolk took a seat in their midst with a set of strange instruments, drums and zithers, Haeseon was amazed some of them still managed to stay on their feet as they rose to dance to the cheerful tunes.

It was a few hours into the night, as Haeseon looked around, that he came to realise something odd about those who lived in the town of Ísafjörður. The townsfolk were young, every last one of them. There was barely a wrinkled face in sight, no one whose movements were slow with age or whose back bent in their elder years. Frowning, he tried to recall seeing anyone older at the docks when they’d first arrived, but no matter how hard he thought, all that came to his mind were the faces of young men and women and their children.

With a rush of cold, Haeseon remembered what Qasim had told him months and months ago, when he’d first come to find them in Shanghai. As part of the warnings Talya had received from Hel’s messenger, the elders of the town where she’d been born had been killed in a most gruesome manner in their beds with no trace of who had done it. The fathers and mothers of those who lived in the town of Ísafjörður were no longer of this world, having been torn from it by Hel’s command.

His stomach turned and he pressed a hand to it, suddenly loathe to even think of food. He looked at the townsfolk and wondered how on earth they could look so content. Not a single face was without a smile or laughter, clapping their hands and hooting while the pirates danced around the fires and chanted words foreign to Haeseon’s ear. They did not look like the people of a town who had lost those who had raised them.

Haeseon stood from his seat and excused himself, attempting a smile when Jihan asked him what was wrong. The captain was hardly convinced, but he did not stop Haeseon when he walked away from the tables and the feast in search of air free of the scent of fire and blood.

He didn’t make it very far. The docks had only just come into his line of sight when someone called him back, hurried footsteps following his path. Haeseon pressed his lips together—he should’ve known she would not let him go without worry—and turned to face Talya, although he couldn’t immediately meet her eyes.

“Are you alright?” she asked and took hold of his arms, leaning forward to properly look upon his face. “Did you eat too much?”

“No,” he said meekly. When he looked at her, brows pinched in worry, he wondered how she could be so at peace. Whatever plans she had made for the days following the feast, she could still smile in spite of what had happened, if not to the elders of her home, then to her own men amidst the battle on the glacier. In her apparent lack of sorrow, Haeseon felt as though he ought to bear it in her stead. Someone had to. “I only—I’m sorry. For… for what you’ve lost.”

Confusion flickered across the Northern Cardinal’s face before it was chased away by her understanding. “Oh, sweet Haeseon,” she said and gently pulled him into her embrace. “Do not look so sad. The dead may be gone from the world we know, but they live on in the next. Our gods care for them in death, better than they ever could in life.”

In her arms, Haeseon could feel her strength, every bit as unyielding as Jihan’s would be when he hadn’t willingly given it away to allow him past it. He wondered if Talya’s strength was like that, a shield she raised around herself to keep the world from seeing her for who she was. “They shouldn’t have died,” he whispered against her shoulder. “It’s unfair that they did.”

“It is,” Talya agreed, “but neither your tears or mine can’t bring them back to us.” Her words were hardly those of comfort, and she must’ve realised it as well, for she sighed and patted Haeseon’s back before releasing him from her arms. Instead, she took his hand and pulled him back towards the feast, a patient smile on her lips. “Come,” she said, coaxing. “I will tell you more of how our dead are honoured. Maybe it will stop you from being sad.”

He followed without protest, knowing she would refuse to hear it until she had made him smile again. 

The seat in which the Northern Cardinal had lounged was of a finer make than the rest, covered with soft furs to ease the stone from which it had been carved. It made Haeseon think of a throne, and of her as the queen who ruled over her little town of people as young as she was. To its right sat Qasim, smiling his thin smile full of mirth as he watched his crewmen dance, and to its left, Freyr’s seat stood empty.

For a moment, Haeseon feared Talya would insist she take her son’s place. Empty as it was, should Freyr return to find Haeseon in his seat, he would surely make the act of ignoring him and his tantrums that much harder. Thankfully, Talya guided him past it, but his relief was short-lived; she pushed him into the furs of her own seat and pulled them around his frame before sitting down on one of the armrests.

To their right, Qasim turned his amusement on Haeseon, quirking a brow and chuckling when he grew flustered. Haeseon wanted to protest, to insist on sitting somewhere else, but Talya spoke before he had the chance to. “We northerners don’t believe in eternal rest,” she said and gestured towards the townsfolk and her crew, mingled as they were in their dance, joyous and uncaring. “When we die, it is only the end of one life and the beginning of the next. Leaving this world means walking into the next, to live in the realms of our gods.”

Haeseon listened, leaning close so he wouldn’t miss a word she said in the ruckus of the feast. “Our gods take care of us,” she said, nodding at her own words. “We serve them in this life, we worship them with acts of honour in their name and we carve their lessons and images into stones and the earth. In return, they welcome us to their homes in the life that comes after this one.”

Amidst her tales, her hand found its way to Haeseon’s hair, stroking the bright locks and thumbing along his temple. The gentle touch soothed him, and he rested his head against her leg and closed his eyes, not because he was tired, but because he wanted to hear her words and only them, none of the rest of the world’s noise.

“Every death is hailed with… with respect,” Talya said, huffing at her struggle to find the proper words. “We burn our dead to free them from the body they had in this world, so that they can properly reach their next. When we searched for you after the battle against Hel, we found those of my crew who had fallen and built a pyre for them. They were warriors, and they deserved a warrior’s funeral.” Haeseon might’ve imagined it, the tremor in her hand when she stroked along the locks of his hair. “They live on where we can’t see them,” she said, her voice steady where her touch was not, “but they are at peace all the same.”

The noise of the feast flared without warning, the songs interrupted by sudden gasps and exclamations of wonder. Talya shifted in her seat, and when she chuckled, Haeseon felt its reverberations all the way where he rested his head in her lap. “Perhaps we can see them, after all,” she said and leaned forward so she could whisper in Haeseon’s ear. “Look at the sky, sweet Haeseon.”

He did as told, blinking against the sharp light of the braziers before he realised what it was that had the northerners so awed. Faint lines of green and blue streaked across the dark sky, like flames, flickering into sight and then away again. They twisted this way and that, reaching farther every time they appeared again, their strength and radiance growing for every star they swallowed.

They spread and spread until the night sky stood aflame with blue and green and yellow, lights dancing in waves across the heavens.

“When the Aurora shines, those chosen by Óðinn march to join him in Valhalla,” Talya told him in a hushed voice, her smile wide as ever. “Whether it is the elders who raised me or the men of my crew, they go to feast in halls of valour now, with the gods they served in life.”

The sight took the air out of Haeseon’s lungs in a quivering exhale. He was overwhelmed by it, eyes wide and searching yet never seeing enough of the sky’s lights. It was as if he could feel it on his skin, prickling and warming him as if its vibrant flames burned within his chest. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he whispered, breathless. “It’s so beautiful.”

Far beyond the feast, a heartbeat echoed like the strike of a drum.

He didn’t realise he had risen from his seat until Talya stood by his side. “It is, isn’t it?” she mused, every bit as quietly. “The Aurora shines for Óðinn’s chosen and no one else. Only those worthy are beckoned by it.” When the bards resumed playing their songs, the Northern Cardinal took Haeseon’s hand and tugged, dragging him to where her pirates had returned to their festivities once more. “Come dance with me, darling Haeseon.”

The spell of the sky’s lights was loathe to let him go; he did not properly realise what she’d meant until they stood in the midst of the feast’s fires. “O-oh,” he uttered, warmth rising to his cheeks, “but—I’m not—” He grew flustered under her expectant look and turned to where his own crew was seated. He threw a silent plea at Jihan, who returned it with only a grin. The captain leaned forward in his seat, resting his chin against his knuckles as if he was eager to watch what was about to unfold. Bastard. “I don’t know how, Talya,” Haeseon said meekly when he turned back.

“So follow me,” the Northern Cardinal said and guided Haeseon to stand in front of her. “Do what I do.” She let him go in favour of placing her hands at her own waist and jutting out her right foot in front of her. The smile on her lips was teasing and encouraging all at once, and it took Haeseon a long moment to find his courage, his cheeks aflame with shyness as he mimicked her stance.

Talya moved out of rhythm, slowing the pace of her movements to give Haeseon time to learn them one by one. He followed them as best he could, and even though he felt like a foal learning to walk, her glee was contagious and impossible to resist. When she took his right hand in hers and made them turn in a circle, Haeseon hid his face in his sleeve, although he did so with a smile on his lips. None of the others dancing looked their way, lost as they were in their own enjoyment. Haeseon knew Jihan was watching, but with no one else to think him ridiculous, he lost his nervousness quickly enough.

When Talya finally matched her pace to that of the bards’ song, Haeseon emitted a bark of laughter in his struggle to keep up. He did his utmost to kick his legs to the music and spin around quickly enough, all the while the Northern Cardinal urged him on with cheers, clapping her hands to the beat while she kept its rhythm easily enough.

Before long, Talya stopped and said something about dragging Qasim off his arse to dance as well. She lingered before returning to her seat, however, and stepped into Haeseon’s space to whisper to him words that were meant for no one else. “You could tell me you were fathered by one of Óðinn's crows, and I would believe you, sweet Haeseon,” she said, smiling as she held his face in her hands with all the tenderness of a mother. “Their dark feathers given colour and beauty, and the unbound, radiant spirit of spring.”

Breathless as he was from their dance, whatever incoherent words Haeseon had thought to speak in reply were lost in his laboured exhale. Her words made him shy; he did not think himself deserving of such praise, but for once, rather than protest the kindness Talya showed him, he smiled and reached up to place his hands upon hers. Content, she nodded and let him go, quick to turn away and holler at her husband in strange words that made the townsfolk laugh.

Alone amidst the dancing pirates, Haeseon moved to return to his seat by Jihan’s side, but stopped when he noticed the falling snow. At least he believed it was snow; the sky was clear as ever, its gold-green lights clear as ever, but the little flakes were cold to the touch when he raised his hand to catch one of them. In their descent, they shone with light from the fires and the Aurora, and in his awe, Haeseon forgot all about walking away from the music that seeped into his skin, so he resumed dancing on his own, uncaring of the rest of the world.

It was as if the stars were all around him, glimmering in the air he breathed. He raised his arms to catch them, laughter spilling from his lips as he turned on the heel, spinning where he stood. The falling lights hit his open hands and danced over his skin, leaving only a trickle of warmth in their wake before they faded, only to be immediately replaced by another shining flicker.

His exhilarated breath turned to mist in the chill of the midnight air, yet in spite of the winter cold and the snow around him, his body was flushed with warmth, his cheeks as rosy as his hair. The beads of his robes clattered as he spun, a playful touch to the sound of the flutes and drums and the zither strings.

Truly, Haeseon had never seen something so beautiful in all his life.

He turned until he felt lightheaded and stumbled over his own boots. He might’ve fallen, but a pair of hands came to hold his waist, firm in their grip as they stilled him and kept him upright while the rest of the world kept turning. “Easy,” a low voice said and chuckled when Haeseon squirmed around until they stood face to face. His beloved was smiling, the lights of the Aurora glinting in his eyes. “Are you going to dance until you lose your legs to the frost, songbird?”

Haeseon laughed, breathless in his glee. “Only if this night never ends, Jihan,” he said and kissed the captain’s lips before taking hold of his hands, “and only if you dance with me.”

In an instant, the smile slipped from Jihan’s lips and was replaced with a grimace. “I don’t dance,” he said, yet did very little to stop Haeseon from guiding him into the correct stance. “Songbird…”

“Try,” Haeseon coaxed in a sweet voice he knew the captain struggled to resist. When Jihan still looked unimpressed, he remembered what Talya had told him with no small amount of slyness earlier. Warmth rose to his cheeks, but he leaned into the captain’s space and said, very quietly, “If you do, I’ll take you somewhere we can unwind after. Alone.”

Jihan’s eyebrows rose towards his hairline in surprise at his bold words. He parted his lips, but Haeseon tugged him forward before he could comment, knowing whatever he wanted to say would only make Haeseon shyer than he already was. Instead, he offered his beloved a cheeky smile and showed him how to stand and move, teaching him the steps he himself had only just learned an hour prior.

He had a suspicion he taught Jihan wrong, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

For all his grouching, the captain followed his lead without too much reluctance. He was far clumsier than Haeseon, but he kicked his legs the way Haeseon showed him and stumbled his way through the spins. When Haeseon giggled at his concentrated look, Jihan pursed his lips and feigned annoyance until Haeseon leaned in to kiss the corner of his mouth. He looked unbearably smug then, as if he had won some senseless competition, and then he let Haeseon guide his steps again.

The captain did halt when Yeonshin hooted at them from their table, turning to level the surgeon with a murderous look that lost all the fierceness it might’ve had when Haeseon took his hand and made him spin around. Booming laughter rose from the August’s crew, but when Haeseon guided Jihan’s hands to his waist and made him hold onto him tightly, the captain lost his ire quickly enough.

So lost in their dance was Haeseon that he forgot about those around him until Talya’s voice rose above the music, loud enough for everyone to hear her question. “Everyone agrees you two look the part already,” she began in the smug voice Haeseon had come to dread, “so why not stop fooling around and see through your marriage?”

Haeseon tripped over his own feet in his shock, a startled yelp slipping past his lips as he stumbled and latched onto Jihan’s arm to not fall on his behind. The captain had gone still amidst a step, as if he’d been turned to stone, and Haeseon did not dare look at his face when he righted himself. Instead, he whirled around to glare at Talya, his cheeks aflame with mortification. “Talya,” he barked in an attempt to be stern, although his voice betrayed him, rising higher in his embarrassment.

The Northern Cardinal had returned to her throne-like seat, clearly failing in her task to drag Qasim out of his to join the dance. She did not seem too upset; on the contrary, with Haeseon thoroughly flustered by her prompt, Talya looked enormously pleased, as if her life’s duty had now been complete.

A chorus of whistles and cheers rose from the August’s crew, led by Seunggi and Xiao, and while their words were an incoherent ramble, the townsfolk were quick to join, clapping their hands and laughing along. Haeseon did not know if they knew what Talya had said or why everyone was so gleeful, but the attention of so many rendered him even more of a sputtering mess, blushing red all the way to the tips of his ears.

In his desperation, he finally turned to Jihan to have him put an end to the others’ teasing. He regretted it immediately; rather than annoyed or even embarrassed, the look on the captain’s face was content, verging on fondness as he watched Haeseon in his struggle. He was smiling, but clearly attempting not to, his lips pressed together and curled up ever so slightly in the corners.

“Don’t just stare,” Haeseon whined and half heartedly smacked at the arm he was holding. “Tell them to—make them—do something!”

The captain stirred at that, but hardly in the way Haeseon had intended. As if the people around him were mere specks of dust in the wind, irrelevant to whatever state of unabashed courage he was caught in, he freed himself from Haeseon’s grip to grab him by the waist instead and pull him close, the thumb of his prosthetic hand coming up to stroke the flushed skin of Haeseon’s cheek. “Perhaps we should,” Jihan murmured in a voice that brought to Haeseon’s mind the very first time the captain had kissed him.

All air in his lungs left him in a quivering exhale. Jihan stood so close Haeseon could feel the warmth of his breath against his lips. His touch was fire, even though the cold clung to the ivory of his left hand, a stark contrast to the heat of Haeseon’s skin. The air they breathed was the same; even the world around them was theirs and theirs alone for as long as the spell that bound them together lasted.

It was overwhelming, the sheer amount of emotion with which the captain looked at him. Adoration, reverence, awe, wonder, and so much love that breathing alone became too hard a task for Haeseon to see through. “Jihan,” he said and found his own voice high and lack of air, as if he was truly drowning in what the captain regarded him with.

As soon as he had spoken, the spell cracked and shattered like a thin veil of glass. The captain’s words had been quiet so no one else would hear, but with his wits returned, Haeseon turned in Jihan’s arms all the same, knowing one whose ears worked better than the others’. True enough, when he looked at Talya, her grin ran from ear to ear, and she raised her tankard of ale in cheers, as if to toast Jihan’s admission.

In an instant, Haeseon’s prior embarrassment came rushing back, along with a want to sink into the cold earth and perish there, far away from amused eyes. “Jihan,” he said again, louder and with far more of a whine to his tone. “Don’t encourage her!”

When the captain blinked out of the spell that had trapped them both, he only smirked, not a shred of remorse to the curl of his lips. On the contrary, he seemed perfectly content with Haeseon’s reaction, much to the glee of everyone around them. “Did I?” he mused, unaffected by the near murderous glare Haeseon pinned him under.

Feeling as if he was on the verge of bursting with mortification, Haeseon took hold of the hand Jihan had pressed against his face and stormed off, dragging the captain along away from the feast and towards the eastern part of the town. The others’ laughter followed them all the way, and although Haeseon knew they meant only well, he promised to himself to shove a handful of snow into Talya’s face when he’d return, and pour flakes of dried chili peppers into Seunggi’s drink.

Jihan followed him easily until they reached the edge of the town of Ísafjörður. When Haeseon did not stop, he asked where they were going, to which Haeseon replied with a warning look over his shoulder. “I’m taking you to the place I spoke of earlier,” he said with a huff. “Even though you don’t deserve it.”

Rather than deterred, the captain hummed in answer, feigning thoughtfulness. “Why do I not deserve it, songbird?” he asked, teasing. Only now, without the noise of the feast, Haeseon realised the slight slur to Jihan’s voice. He was hardly drunk, but the mead had done its work on him all the same. “Because I want to wed you?”

“You—” Hearing the words so bluntly took the air out of Haeseon’s lungs again and made the warmth in his cheeks so severe he feared he might’ve set himself aflame. Flustered as he grew, he had no proper answer for the captain, so he only let go of his hand and managed a high-pitched, “We’re not speaking of this now!” before stomping off ahead through the snow.

Jihan chuckled and followed him out into the deeper snows outside the town. “As you wish,” he said, and then nothing more for the remainder of their walk.

The hot springs Talya had spoken of were not far at all from Ísafjörður’s outskirts. After merely ten minutes of walking uphill, they reached a pair of torches standing tall in the snow at the top of the slope, one of them bearing a sign Haeseon could not read. Thankfully, he didn’t have to; as soon as he had climbed high enough to see the letters, he saw the springs some way down the path framed by a row of torches.

The hot springs were beautiful to behold, with steam rising from the water and the northern lights reflected on its surface. A little wooden hut stood by the side of the pools, the space in front of its door cleared whilst the snow reached halfway up its walls everywhere else.

“Oh,” Jihan uttered when he came up next to Haeseon, “hot springs.” The teasing was finally gone from his voice in favour of his surprise, and a pleased contentedness that had Haeseon smiling in spite of himself. “This is where you wanted to take me?”

“Yes,” he said and trudged down the path towards the closest of the springs. There were three of the pools, the two bigger ones shallow whilst the last one, while smaller in size, looked to be much deeper. “I can’t remember the last time I could properly soak in a bath, and if I can’t remember, then I doubt you can, either.”

The captain snorted, but did not argue. “It looks soothing,” he said, already fiddling with the ties of his furs. “In spite of the snow, if the water is hot enough to steam like this, we could probably stay in there as long as we like.”

“Yes,” Haeseon said again. He crouched by the edge of the nearest spring and hummed in content at the warmth of the air that rose from its water. He sank into a crouch so he could tentatively reach down and dip his chilled fingers into the pool, and a gasp spilled past his lips before he could stop it. “It’s so warm,” he said and submerged the whole of his hand, shuddering with delight before standing back upright to undress. “I’m never going to want to leave.”

“Then I suppose Hel and Elyas Lowe will have to come find us here,” Jihan said in jest. He snickered under the pointed look Haeseon sent his way and slipped out of his first layers of furs, shuddering as the cold seeped through the remaining ones.

Haeseon paused the loosening of his boots and looked up at his beloved, a sudden thought striking him. “Will your arm be alright in the water?” he asked.

The captain halted as well, a look of realisation settling over his face. “Forgot the bloody thing,” he said, huffing as he rolled his left shoulder. “I suppose I should take it off. I doubt a bit of water would do it much harm, but I’d rather go without than have to sail all the way to Zhang Honghui to have him clean rust from its inner parts.”

Smiling at the tone with which Jihan spoke of the armorer, Haeseon stood and walked closer so he could help his beloved with the straps that bound his prosthesis. “He would be glad to see you,” he said, chuckling at Jihan’s unimpressed expression. “At the very least, he loves the gold you bring him each time.”

“He would charge me the cost of a new arm to clean mine off rust,” the captain said. He gritted his teeth around a groan when Haeseon had loosened the prosthesis’ bonds and carefully removed the limb from his shoulder. “Shit, I always forget how heavy it truly is.”

Haeseon stooped to set the prosthesis down on top of the robes Jihan had discarded. “A bath will do wonders for the tension in your shoulder,” he said and resumed stripping out of his own garb.

The cold bit at his skin once he was bare and made him shiver. Quickly, he stepped into the spring and crouched so the water came up to his chin. The whole of his body trembled at the initial shock of heat, a quiver that racked his voice when he emitted a contented sound. “It feels wonderful,” he said and beckoned the captain to join him.

Another groan spilled from Jihan’s lips when he took his seat in the pool, although this one was full of appreciation. He closed his eyes, his lips parted to breathe through the time it took him to grow used to the sudden warmth before he settled. “Fuck,” he drawled, his eyes heavy when he opened them again. “You’ll have to drag me out of here, or I'll stay until I melt, songbird.”

Haeseon giggled at that, flicking water the captain’s way. “You assume it will be easier for me to leave,” he said and looked up at the Aurora, marveling at the hues of purple that had slipped into the greens and blues. “I could stay here forever.”

The only reply Jihan offered him was an incoherent rumble of a sound. Smiling, Haeseon went about washing himself, scrubbing at his skin until he had gotten rid of every speck of dirt, even from underneath his fingernails. He did not touch his hair, knowing the cold would be harsher should he wet it, so once he deemed himself clean, he moved through the water to sit down next to Jihan.

He leaned back against the rocks along the spring’s edge, the heat of the water having melted the snow. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift to and fro, humming in content at how weightless he felt in the warmth of the pool. It was more comforting than he would’ve thought, and if Jihan hadn’t spoken, he might’ve truly fallen asleep.

“You’re lovely like this, songbird.”

Upon the captain’s sweet words, Haeseon’s cheeks grew red with shyness—redder than they already were from the bath—but he couldn’t help but preen all the same. “Like what?” he asked and sent his beloved a quick glance before looking up into the sky once more.

Jihan only made a non-committal sound at first, as if he was taking his time to find the words Haeseon knew sat ready on the tip of his tongue. “Like this,” the captain said and reached through the water to press his hand against Haeseon’s chest. His voice was low, and it made Haeseon shudder. “Your body is languid and loose. There is no tension in your muscles. You’re flushed all the way down to your collar.” Jihan pressed his thumb against the top of his abdomen, pulling a gasp from Haeseon’s lips. “And you’re completely bare.”

Although he would once have been flustered by the mere thought of being naked in his beloved’s presence, it was hardly what made Haeseon shy anymore. They had spent enough nights like this, enough times between the sheets to make him used to it, and while Jihan’s words easily made him blush and stutter, he knew he had the captain in the palm of his hand when they were like this.

Having suffered through teasing throughout the night, Haeseon decided to retaliate in kind now. He ran his teeth over his lower lip in an attempt to smile too widely. “I was bare when you brought me back from the glacier as well,” he said with the tone of someone speaking of the weather. “I had to bathe in front of everyone.”

The contented look slipped from Jihan’s face in an instant to give way for a mighty grimace. “Why would you say that now?” he groaned and let his head fall back against the edge of the spring. “That is the last thing I want to hear.”

“I know,” Haeseon managed through a fit of giggling, hiding his smile behind his hand. When he sobered up, he moved a little closer and placed his hand over the captain’s where it lingered against his chest. “Tell me, what should I have said?”

Jihan huffed at that, as if he found Haeseon’s prompt was wholly ridiculous. “As if I would dare put words in your mouth, songbird,” he said.

In spite of the fondness that rose to Haeseon’s chest, he wasn’t quite done with his teasing yet. After all, both Jihan and Talya had had plenty of fun at his expense, and he would pay the captain back first with a taste of his own medicine. “I’m certain,” he began, “you can think of something else to… to put…”

Whatever courage had brought the crude jest to mind was quick to fade when Jihan’s frame grew tense and he sat upright to stare at Haeseon with eyes wide in surprise. Haeseon’s lips moved without a sound making it past them; by the time a crooked grin had settled on the captain’s lips, he wanted nothing more than to dive to the bottom of the spring and drown.

In a fruitless effort to save whatever still remained of his dignity, Haeseon cleared his throat and turned away. “Forget it,” he said far too loudly and made a show of busying himself with washing, as if he hadn’t already done it once already.

“Oh no, I don’t think I will,” Jihan said. His grin was audible from his voice alone. “Do tell me what the end of that sentence sounds like, songbird. I would so love to hear it.”

“Then it’s a shame you never will.” Haeseon’s voice came out snappish, but the pitch of it betrayed his mortification. He gave up on his facade and buried his face in his hands, wallowing in self-deprecation at what he had been about to suggest. “Gods, I can’t believe I even thought the words,” he bemoaned.

The captain’s chuckle was gentler this time, as was his touch when he moved through the water until he was seated behind Haeseon and curled his arm around his waist. Haeseon squirmed, half-heartedly fighting Jihan’s embrace solely because of his embarrassment, but when his beloved pressed his lips against his shoulder, he stilled, resigned. “There is no need to be so shy,” Jihan murmured against his skin. “You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to, but don’t think I would’ve ridiculed you if you had.”

Haeseon pursed his lips into a petulant pout and sullenly splashed the water with his hands. “You wouldn’t have?” he asked and cursed how small his voice was.

“Laughter would’ve been the last thing on my mind, songbird,” Jihan said bluntly.

If possible, Haeseon grew redder still. “I didn’t bring you here for that,” he insisted. “We're here to bathe.”

“I know.” The captain pulled him more firmly against his chest and leaned back, settling comfortably against the edge of the spring. “It wouldn’t be very practical either way,” he said, feigning thoughtfulness. “Too much water and too much cold air.” He huffed out a laughter when Haeseon blindly reached over his shoulder to swat at Jihan’s head. “Let us just enjoy the warmth, songbird, for as long as we can.”

Even long after they had settled, Jihan did not stop lavishing him with attention. He kept kissing him, lips dragging slowly over his shoulders and neck, pausing here and there to press his tongue against Haeseon’s skin and graze his teeth over it. He did nothing else, only kissed him over and over until the whole of Haeseon’s body was heavy and buzzing on the verge of dozing off.

He did not know how much time had passed when the captain nudged him out of his hazy state and told him they had better return to Ísafjörður lest he fall asleep in the water. Haeseon agreed, although it took him a moment or two to find the words to do so; when he did, they left his lips in a slur that had Jihan laughing and pinching him in the side to properly wake him up.

Before they stood, the captain pressed a final kiss to his skin, this time over the scars on the side of his neck. It was softer than the others, and it left an odd ache in its wake, a yearning of sorts that Haeseon couldn’t quite place.. 

Haeseon dressed first, pulling his robes over his wet skin in order to help Jihan with his prosthesis without freezing halfway through it. He tightened the straps and drew back only when the captain’s Blessing seeped into the limb and made it move. Haeseon waited for Jihan to pull his many layers of robes and furs onto his frame, yet a discontent clung to him all the while, an odd kind of nervousness drawing the muscles of his arm taut and causing tremors to plague his hands.

Only when the captain was nearly done did Haeseon recognise his guilt for what it was, the scars of his neck prickling with numbness. The tension in him grew tenfold and the cold felt that much harsher, but he knew then that there would be no better time to tell his beloved what he should’ve told him when he’d first realised what had happened to him.

“Jihan,” he said with as much calm as he could muster. The captain emitted an inquisitive noise, and Haeseon drew a deep breath to give himself courage. “I’ve lost my hearing in one of my ears.”

Jihan halted in the middle of pulling his furs over his shoulders, his head snapping up so he could stare at Haeseon with eyes wide with shock. His gaze flickered across his face, from his right ear to his left and back again before settling on the scars that spread along the side of his neck. The longest of the dark marks reached just shy of the shell of Haeseon right ear, and Haeseon knew Jihan knew at once when it had happened.

“It’s my right,” he said all the same. If only to keep from wringing his hands, he reached up to rub at the scars closest to his ear. “I’m not certain why, but after the storm struck me amidst our battle against Son Oseong, I haven’t been able to hear a thing with my right ear.”

The captain straightened up slowly, still without uttering a word. He only looked, but as Haeseon spoke, his expression changed in a manner that had Haeseon dreading what the first words past his lips would be. Jihan’s eyes narrowed and his brow pulled into a frown, but the tightness of his jaw was what gave him away and told Haeseon just how upset he was growing by every passing second.

His silence seemed to last a lifetime before he finally spoke. “You,” he began, his voice coming out hoarse. “Why have you not told me?”

His words were tense, so much so it had Haeseon’s courage shrinking in his chest. He already regretted saying anything at all, but he knew this was not a conversation he could avoid forever, so he clung to his bravery and held Jihan’s gaze no matter how much he wanted to look away.

“I wasn’t ready,” he said. “I knew it would make you hurt to know, and at the time, we had lost so much. We had lost our home to Oseong’s fire and we were stranded in Shanghai, and all of us were healing from the battle. I—I knew it would make the others sad to know, and you…” He paused, struggling to find the right words to make Jihan see. “I didn’t want you to blame yourself,” he said, cursing the quiver in his voice. “It was my choice to do as I did and I would do it a hundred times over. Not hearing anything from my right ear wasn’t frightening after what had happened, but seeing you be riddled with guilt… I wasn’t ready for it.”

He drew a deep breath, thankful that the captain let him speak uninterrupted; surely, had he interrupted now, Haeseon’s resolve would’ve cracked in an instant. “You look so sad every time you see my scars, Jihan,” he said. The marks on his neck prickled, even though their numbness had long since faded. “It’s as if they hurt you more than they ever did me, and if you had known that I couldn’t hear properly anymore because of what happened, I—” He swallowed against the thickness in his throat. “It made me ache to even imagine.”

Jihan’s silence lasted for long after Haeseon was done, his expression set in stone. His gaze was heavy and unyielding. It broke its way easily into Haeseon’s soul, bare as he always left it for his beloved. Jihan only looked, and Haeseon let him, no matter how he wanted to plead with him to speak, to move, to do anything at all.

“This explains so much,” the captain finally said. He spoke slowly, as if he was struggling with his own thoughts. “How you sometimes wouldn’t realise someone was addressing you unless they did it loudly enough or first drew your attention. How you’d turn in your seat to listen to someone if they sat to your right. How—”

The words died in his throat and the cold mask he’d donned cracked to give way for a pained grimace. His lips curled down and he reached up to run a hand through his hair, pausing halfway to give a sharp tug. “How you sometimes wouldn’t answer when we were alone,” he said in agitation. “I would whisper in your ear and you’d say nothing, and I’d believe it was because you were so lost in the pleasure of what we were doing, or too tired to think of a reply when we were falling asleep, or—” He lowered his hand to press it against his face. “Fuck.”

The sight of his distress had Haeseon wanting to pull him into his arms and hold him, but he couldn’t. Not now. “I’m sorry, Jihan,” he said as firmly as he could. “I know I should’ve told you, and I’m sorry I didn’t. The more time passed without me saying anything, the more scared I became, a-and I know it’s no excuse and that I should’ve told you.”

“Yes, you should’ve.” The captain’s voice made Haeseon feel as if the earth’s cold had taken root in his core; the ache he had so feared to burden Jihan with was there now, hidden behind anger and frustration. “We share everything,” he bit out. “Our worries and fears and our weaknesses. Especially our weaknesses. I’ve shared mine with you. I’ve tried to be as honest with you as I can, about everything. I’ve never kept anything from you, even though—fuck, even though admitting to the world that I am weak is something I haven’t done since—since—”

He shook his head in an attempt to dispel his mounting anger, drawing a deep, unsteady breath. “Seunggi confided in you every time he struggled with the loss of his eye,” he said, forcibly calm, “and I confided in you about Seunggi’s Blessing because I believed you should know about it. When I was struggling to adjust to my new arm all those months ago, it was you I asked to help me with it. And,” his voice quivered and cracked, “I told you of my mother and father.”

“I know,” Haeseon said in a meek whisper. It was all he knew to say; there was no excuse he could think of, no proper reason he could give to make the captain forgive him.

“You know,” Jihan said through gritted teeth. “So why didn’t you tell me?”

Haeseon parted his lips and closed them again. “I,” he said, “I was afraid.”

“Of what?” The captain’s anger waned, but, to Haeseon’s horror, it wavered only to give way for anguish. “Of me?” Jihan asked with all the hurt he had dreaded breaking his voice apart.

“No,” Haeseon said loudly, eyes stinging with tears. It was the last thing in the world he wanted the captain to believe, or even imagine. He had said so again and again, Haeseon had told him over and over that he could never be afraid of him, and it tore at his heart to know Jihan still did not believe him. “No, never, Jihan, never of you!”

“Then of what?!” His beloved’s outburst was loud in the night before he reigned himself in, heaving a quivering sigh. He clenched and unclenched his hands at his sides and tipped his head back, blinking hard as he concentrated on simply breathing. “How could you not tell us?” he asked when he looked at Haeseon again. “You—this could’ve been dangerous. What if something had happened in any of the battles we’ve faced ever since you—since—since you were struck by the storm? What if—what if something had happened to you because you hadn’t heard me, or somebody else? Because we didn’t know?”

“But it didn’t,” Haeseon said, not to defend himself or what he had done, but because it was true. “Nothing has gone wrong because of my hearing.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that it could’ve!” Jihan barked, strained with agitation. “Someone has to know, because if things go wrong, they will know what to do. They will know how to properly help you.”

Haeseon pressed his lips together and finally cast down his gaze, shame seeping into his guilt. The captain was right, of course he was; amidst the chaos of battle, not hearing the voice of one’s own crew could bear devastating results. “I know,” he said quietly.

Jihan exhaled sharply in an attempt to dispel the heaviness the clung to his breath. Upon Haeseon’s meek reply, he only looked at him, all his anger and hurt boring its way into Haeseon’s skull. He couldn’t meet Jihan’s eyes now, guilt hanging heavy over his shoulders and keeping his head down, even when the captain raised his voice again.

“Does anyone else know?” he asked. Haeseon parted his lips to deny it, but closed them again he realised it would’ve been a lie to do so. The gesture did not go unnoticed by Jihan, whose expression hardened to the point the bones in his jaw creaked when he pried them apart to speak. “She knows, doesn’t she? Sabelsdottír.”

“I didn’t tell her, Jihan, I promise,” Haeseon cried with no small amount of distress. A sob brimmed in his throat, threatening to choke him lest he let it out, but he couldn’t, not now. The captain had to know it was the truth, Haeseon needed him to know. “I would never have told her before telling you, I swear it. She only… she realised it on her own.”

“She realised it on her own,” Jihan echoed, hollow. “We’ve been here for, what, a mere month, but she realised it on her own.” The breath he took to calm himself trembled worse than any so far. “She realised it, even though I couldn’t.”

The guilt Haeseon had known would plague the captain bared its head now, when his anger and hurt had reached their peak. He had to drive it away—it was the last thing he wanted Jihan to feel—but he barely had the chance to speak his beloved’s name. “Jihan—”

“That’s how it is, isn’t it?” the captain spat with so much self-loathing, it tormented Haeseon to stand aside and do nothing but hold back his tears. “It never even crossed my mind that something like this could’ve happened. Not once in the months that have passed have I imagined something has lingered from the storm aside from your hands’ tremors. Not once, yet Sabelsdottír realised it, what, a matter of weeks? Days?”

“It’s different with her,” Haeseon said, desperate to make him see. “It’s her Blessing. Talya’s Blessing gives her better instincts, it makes her more attentive. She—she’s more aware of little things like this.”

“This is not a little thing,” Jihan gritted out and pressed his hands against his face. He sounded as if he was in pain, as if he was hurting from the inside with no ways to make it stop. “Fuck, this is so far from a little thing.”

Tears burned hot behind his eyes, but Haeseon refused to let them fall. If he cried now, he knew the captain’s guilt would grow worse for it and he’d attempt to suppress the anger that was rightfully his, so Haeseon blinked hard and held his sorrow at bay. “I’m sorry,” he said and hoped his beloved would believe him even with the way his voice cracked. “I’m s-so sorry, Jihan.”

Jihan looked at him as if he expected him to say something more, anything at all. He waited, all the while exuding all the anguish Haeseon had caused him, but there was nothing Haeseon could say now. He remained silent, his lips pressed together to not let his composure break, and finally, the captain heaved an agitated sigh and looked around, every bit as lost for what to do now as Haeseon was. With a curse whispered under his breath, Jihan stooped to pick up the last of his furs, but he did not tie them around his neck, or wear them at all.

A treacherous flicker of hope rose to Haeseon’s chest when the captain approached him, a hope that died upon sight of the stiffness of Jihan’s movements and the hardened mask he had donned for his expression once again. He draped the furs over Haeseon’s shoulders and said, in a hoarse and hollow voice, “Don’t be cold, songbird,” before turning away and leaving, back towards the town of Ísafjörður.

In his wake, Haeseon remained unmoving, staring at the ground in front of him where his beloved had stood. He waited, holding on with all he had to give to not allow himself to crack beneath the weight of his sorrow. It was only a matter of time, he knew, but he did not want Jihan to hear it. All he could do was hold it in for as long as he could, and when it finally became too much, he hoped the captain had gone far enough where his voice would not reach him.

The first sob racked Haeseon’s frame and made him curl in on himself, his tears spilling from his eyes. With the second, he clutched to the furs Jihan had given him, and by the third, he sank to his knees in the snow and cried without restraint. It was unbearable, the ache in his chest, as if thorns had wrapped themselves around his heart and tightened their grip until he couldn’t breathe, no matter how many tears he shed.

He tried to hold onto what Talya had told him when she had realised the truth of his hearing. She’d told him Jihan would need time before he’d come back and things would be right again, but the anguish was impossible to dispel. Haeseon tried and tried to make it stop, but there was nothing to give him comfort, nothing but ice and snow.

Like Talya had warned him that night, the northern cold seeped into his tears and made them freeze on his cheeks. It made his skin prickle with hurt, but nothing could compare to what plagued his chest, an ache the likes of which he would always count on his beloved to help soothe. Now, he couldn’t, and it made his sobs impossible to suppress, so he remained sitting in the snow and cried with no one but the northern lights to hear his sorrow.

-

i’m fukcing crying someone make ti stop oh god ir hurts

i can't oh gdo

(literally had to take a break to get my shet together)

so.

not only did they nOT get laid

i also cried like a baby.

wonderful.

>:T

also oh my god

oh my god it’s relationship angst oh my gOD WHAT HAVE I DONE

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GO BACK TO BEING GROSS AND IN LOVE AND THINKING ABOUT MARRIAGE OH MY GOD DON’T BE SAD AND ANGRY P L E A S E DON’T BE ANGRY OH MY GOD

oh god this hurts me so much fUCK i hate relationship angst so much oh my god can i just smush them together and pretend none of this ever happened pLEASE

AND EVEN WHEN THEY’RE FIGHTING JIHAN STILL GIVES HAESEON HIS FURS AND TELLS HIM TO NOT BE COLD CAN YOU FUCKING NOT FIGHT PLEASE I’M GONNA START CRYING AGAIN OH GOD P LEA SE

AND I KNOW I’M JUST MAKING IT WORSE BUT JUST BECAUSE WE DON’T SEE JIHAN CRYING DOESN’T MEAN HE DOESN’T DO IT OKAY HE AVOIDS GOING BACK TO THE FEAST, GOES TO THE AUGUST INSTEAD AND BREAKS DOWN AND F UCK I HATE THIS CHAPTER

okay no i absolutely love this chapter bUT FUCK 

:(((

I’M SO SAD AND I DON’T LIKE IT

NOW THEY’RE GONNA BE ALL STIFF AND TENSE AROUND EACH OTHER

I. H A T E. T H I S.

by the way, a random important thing about korean culture that i feel like y’all should know; while in the west, looking someone in the eye is a sign of respect, in korea, especially in a situation like this, eye contact is considered sort of like… resistance? defiance? if you’re in the wrong or being scolded, it’s common to cast down your gaze as a sign of submission or to show that you acknowledge that you’re wrong.

that’s why haeseon wants to look away from the start, because he knows he’s wrong and he knows jihan is right to be upset, but even though it’s not a scene we’ve ever seen, i’m sure y’all can imagine jihan isn’t very big on having haeseon show “submission” towards him, especially in a moment like this, so haeseon keeps eye contact for as long as he can manage to, but he feels so guilty towards the end, he looks down and doesn’t look back up again once he’s done it.

just a detail y’all could maybe find interesting, if not for this scene, then for scenes in the first book; there are several ones in which haeseon and jihan are fighting and haeseon refuses to look down, aka refuses to make jihan think he’s in the right. holding his gaze is, on its own, a sign of defiance from haeseon~

OKAY BACK TO CRYING MY EYES OUT OKAY GOOD COOL EXCELLENT CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THEM BE DISTANT TOWARDS EACH OTHER IN THE NEXT CHAPTER

FUCKING GREAT

BYE


	20. chapter 19 - Strung Taut

yo! after seeing your answers for the question about formatting, i'm gonna leave the chapters as they are~ it seems like it's pretty much just my phone's patreon app that does this weird thing where it erases the spaces between paragraphs... maybe it's because my phone's an android :v eh~~

oKAY so this is not much of a soundtrack for the chapter but i may or may not have listened to Outro: Tear on repeat throughout writing this.

it may or may not have made it that much more tENSE OH MY GOD—

brace yourselves.

-

When Haeseon woke the following morning and found himself crammed between Seunggi and Yeonshin, it took him a long moment to remember why he had slept there and not in the chambers he’d been meant to share with Jihan. He groaned, his body feeling heavy and sluggish as he attempted to push himself upright, his muscles aching from sleeping on only a thin layer of furs on the floor.

When he sat up and Jihan’s furs slipped from his shoulders, the night’s events came rushing back in an instant, along with tears that would’ve fallen had he not shed so many after his fight with the captain.

After Jihan had left him by the hot springs, Haeseon had remained seated by the pools for a long time, cold and crying until he felt as if his body had lost all its moisture. He hadn’t wanted to return to the feast, knowing both those of the August’s crew and Talya would’ve been upon him the very instant they’d notice he was alone, or even just the redness of his eyes. Their questions would’ve surely only served to make him all the more miserable, thus he’d waited by the springs long into the night, until he was certain at least some of the pirates had retreated to the tavern.

True enough, by the time he returned to Ísafjörður, only a few stragglers still remained in the heart of the town to drink the last of the spirits. All but one of the braziers had been doused, and Haeseon had stayed outside of its light’s reach, his head bowed down as he snuck to the tavern to sleep.

He had stopped briefly outside the room he was supposed to share with Jihan, his hand halfway raised to the handle. There were no sounds coming from the others side of the door, no sign that the captain had returned there after their fight, yet even so, Haeseon did not dare step inside. Instead, he’d gone to find the room which Seunggi and the others had crammed into to sleep, knocked dead to the world by the mead they had drunk. Careful not to wake any of them, Haeseon had settled next to Seunggi and curled up against him, sniffling through his misery until he’d finally fallen asleep.

Haeseon couldn’t have slept for more than a few hours. Not only was he exhausted, but there was barely any light seeping in from the windows as he crept downstairs to the resting rooms of the tavern. Lanterns were lit in the foyer, and although speaking with anyone was the last thing Haeseon wanted to do just then, he made his way over, knowing he’d have to pass through if he wanted to go outside.

As soon as he stepped past the door frame, he was greeted by a cheery woman on her way out of the kitchens, a greasy rag in her hands. She smiled brightly at him and spoke with no trace of tiredness, undeterred by Haeseon’s lack of understanding for what she said. With a titter, she beckoned him to one of the tables tucked into the corner of the room and had him take a seat against the wall. She ignored whatever meek protests fell from his lips and motioned for him to wait before disappearing back into the kitchens.

Sighing in defeat, Haeseon leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. There was a dull throb to his head, an ache that made the pressure in his chest seem all the more heavy; no matter how he rubbed at his breast to ease it, it refused to budge, a stubborn, sour remainder of what had happened in the night.

I’m sorry, he thought. I’m sorry, Jihan.

When the woman returned from the kitchen with a mug of a steaming, spiced drink, Haeseon did his best to act as if he was fine. He smiled and bowed his head in gratitude, but it must not have been very convincing, for she placed a hand on his shoulder and gave it a sympathetic squeeze. She spoke words that sounded kind, ones Haeseon imagined meant something along the lines of, “It will be alright,” but rather than give him comfort, they only made it harder to stave off the volatile emotions brimming beneath his skin.

She left him alone after that, and he made himself as small as he could in his corner, drawing his knees up against his chest and hanging his head low. The drink smelled wonderful, but the steam of it rose to his eyes and made them prickle—at least, that was what he told himself when a few tears broke free and trailed quietly down his cheeks.

He wished he’d never said a thing about his ear, even though he knew it had been an inevitable conversation. He could hardly blame Jihan for the way he had reacted, but knowing that the captain was justified in his anger did nothing to make Haeseon any less miserable. On the contrary, it only made it worse, knowing that it was all his own fault. He could’ve prevented all of it had he simply been brave enough to speak of it sooner.

They had argued before and disagreed plenty of times, but with Jihan's patience and Haeseon's want to understand, they had always solved their feuds before they could escalate into a proper fight. Neither of them were proud enough to refuse to see whatever issue they might’ve had from the other’s eyes—even Haeseon’s stubbornness yielded easily enough amidst their bickering—thus he and Jihan had never fought to the extent they would avoid one another.

It was the first time they had argued like this, and all Haeseon wanted for comfort was the warmth of his beloved’s embrace and the soothing words he always knew to speak. It was selfish of him, Haeseon knew it was, but he wanted it more than anything.

He did not know for how long he’d sat in his corner when someone approached his table and settled into the seat next to him. Startled, he looked up and came face to face with Lucya, who looked far more well-rested than should be reasonable; Haeseon vaguely remembered seeing the sniper make her way through over half a dozen tankards of mead the previous night, outdrinking many of Talya’s own crewmen.

The sniper peered at him with curiosity, her brow arching ever so slightly as she settled her cane to lean against the table. Her gaze flickered across his face and made him want to hide, a notion he thought of far too late. Her curiosity turned into a frown and she reached over to place her hand against his cheek to coax him into raising his head so she could better see it. For a long moment, she only looked at him, and when her thumb stroked gently against the dark skin beneath his eye, Haeseon had to press his lips together to stop his facade from cracking once more.

Without a word, Lucya rose to her feet once more and stormed off as quickly as she could with her cane, disappearing up the stairs with no small amount of noise. Haeseon remained in his seat, taken aback by her behaviour and merely staring after her until he heard her throw open one of the doors on the second floor. Sighing, Haeseon slumped back against the wall. He knew what she was doing. He wasn’t certain if he wanted her to do it or not, but all he did was wait and hope he was strong enough for what was to come.

Soon enough, Lucya returned with a sleep-drunk Seunggi in tow. He leaned heavily on her to take weight off his broken leg, and she in turn struggled to keep balance against her cane. The quartermaster was halfway through a protest of being dragged from his rest when he noticed Haeseon, and all his tiredness faded in the blink of an eye. “Haesae?” he asked and clutched onto Lucya’s arm to stand upright. “What are you doing awake so—are you alright?”

Haeseon’s first thought was to lie and say he was fine. The corners of his lips lifted into the makings of a reassuring smile before he could properly think of an answer. It did not linger for very long; Seunggi had barely reached the table where he was seated before his vision became blurry with tears once more. Quickly, Haeseon ducked his head and attempted to hide it in his mug.

“Haesae,” Seunggi said when Lucya had helped him into the seat next to Haeseon. While she left them to go to the kitchens, the quartermaster moved as close on the bench as he could, worry etched into his brow. “Haesae, what happened? Why are you so sad?”

Haeseon knew he had to tell him of his ear, but the thought of his friend being angry with him as well as Jihan rendered him unable to speak a single word. He swallowed hard against the lump in his throat and rubbed the tears from his cheeks with trembling hands, all the while racking his mind for the right words, ones that wouldn’t make Seunggi react like his brother had done.

“Is it something Jihan did?” the quartermaster asked, as if he had read Haeseon’s mind. “Neither of you returned to the feast after you’d disappeared, and we all assumed you were enjoying some time alone, but…” He leaned forward when he realised the mention of his brother had brought fresh tears to Haeseon’s eyes. “Did he say something to you? Did you fight?”

Haeseon closed his eyes and nodded, and when he finally spoke, his voice was pitifully small. “‘S my fault,” he whispered and curled further in on himself, as if attempting to hide from the world. “‘S my fault he’s angry. I should’ve told him sooner, I know it, a-and now he’s angry. He’s so angry, and I only—I don’t know what to do.”

Confusion dug a crease into Seunggi’s brow. “I don’t understand,” he said and took hold of Haeseon’s quivering hands. “Why is he angry? What should you have told him sooner?”

Telling his friend was every bit as hard as it had been to tell Jihan. His words were unsteady and interrupted over and over by his own snivelling, and he did not dare meet Seunggi’s eyes as he told him what had happened after he’d been struck by the storm and what had happened with Jihan in the night. 

The quartermaster was silent throughout it all. He said nothing, not when Haeseon spoke of his loss of hearing nor when he told him how Jihan had reacted. Just like his brother’s had, Seunggi’s silence lasted long after Haeseon was done; he sat unmoving, his hands still curled around Haeseon’s even though his grip had slackened.

“I should’ve told him,” Haeseon said when he was done. The whole of him felt hollow. “I should’ve told you, but I…” Whatever excuses he had made for himself during the months that had passed since he’d first realised his partial deafness were gone in the wake of his fight with Jihan. “‘M sorry.”

Seunggi’s silence lingered for a moment longer before he broke it by heaving a deep sigh, his grip on Haeseon’s hands tightening once more. “I see,” he said. The sullenness in his voice made Haeseon wince, but when he tried to pull away from the quartermaster’s touch, he only held on tighter. “Look at me, Haesae.”

It took a world of effort to do as told. Haeseon drew his bottom lip between his teeth and bit down hard as he raised his head. Seunggi was frowning, the crease in his brow deeper than before, but when Haeseon finally met his eyes, he sighed again and shook his head. “I want to be angry with you for not telling me, Haesae,” he said slowly, “but I won’t be.”

Haeseon’s heart lurched in his chest and forced another sob up his throat. “You won’t?” he croaked.

“No.” The quartermaster took one hand off his to wipe the tears from his cheek, just like Lucya had done. “If the thought of Jihan being angry makes you this sad, then I won’t be,” he said and smiled. “You shouldn’t be alone now, so I’ll take your side.”

Numbly, Haeseon wondered how many tears he could shed before he’d run dry from the inside and out. He blinked hard to not let any more of them fall, but the sight of Seunggi’s smile made it an impossible feat. “‘M sorry, Gi,” he said thickly. “‘M sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“I know,” the quartermaster said and pulled him into his arms. The angle was awkward what with how they sat, but the relief it filled Haeseon with far overpowered the ache in his back. He sobbed against Seunggi’s shoulder, even though he felt wholly undeserving of the gentle way in which his friend held him. “Hush now, Haesae,” Seunggi crooned, rocking them back and forth in their seat. “It’ll be alright. My brother will sulk for a little, but he doesn’t love you any less for it. He only needs time.”

Even though Haeseon nodded, his cries did not cease, and Seunggi didn’t let him go. He said nothing more, only hummed a soothing little tune while Haeseon clung to his words with all his might and prayed they were true.

By the time the sun began to properly rise and Yeonshin and Jun joined them downstairs, Haeseon’s tears had finally ceased to fall. He knew he still looked miserable and that the others noticed it at once, but Seunggi shook his head in reply to their inquisitive looks. They said nothing of it, even when they sat down at the table, where the innkeeper brought them freshly baked bread and fish for breakfast.

There was an obvious stiffness to the way the others attempted to make conversation without asking about Haeseon’s fragility, but he appreciated their efforts all the same. He knew he would have to tell them of his ear as well, but for now, it took enough strength simply to remain calm in the wake of the night’s events.

One by one, the rest of the pirates who had slept in the tavern came downstairs to join them for breakfast. Those of the August’s crew all looked at Haeseon in question and Seunggi turned them all away, and soon the foyer was so crowded no one paid them any heed where they sat in their corner. Only Qasim paused in the doorway to look at him, quirking a curious brow, but upon the warning look Seunggi sent his way, he said nothing and made way for the kitchens to fetch his breakfast. Talya was nowhere to be seen, and part of Haeseon was grateful for it; what with how enthusiastic she had been the night before, he doubted she would simply shrug his state off.

Any questions about what might’ve happened were promptly answered a little while later, when the front door to the tavern opened and Jihan stepped inside.

Haeseon grew tense at the sight of him, an unbearable yearning rising to his chest. It was snowing without and the captain stopped at the entrance to brush frost from the shoulders of his robes, grunting in reply when his crew bid him good morning. He looked tired, with dark circles framing his eyes as if he hadn’t slept a wink, and his movements were jerky and stiff, as they always were when he was frustrated.

When Jihan looked up, his eyes found Haeseon in his corner and he stilled halfway through his task of ridding himself of snow. He said nothing—he barely moved a muscle, having donned the same expressionless, stony mask he’d worn towards the end of their fight—and ignored those closest to him, who turned to glance between him and Haeseon. He only looked for a long moment, before his lips curled down and he turned away.

He sat down with Xiao and Daewon at the next table over with his back turned Haeseon’s way, and Haeseon wanted to cry all over again.

He felt raw, as if his sorrow had stripped him to the bone and left him exposed, like an over-sensitive nerve. The staggering surprise with which Yeonshin and Jun stared at him made him ache, as did the comforting squeeze Seunggi gave his hands. I’m sorry, Haeseon thought for the umpteenth time. He wondered if his beloved would believe him should he speak the words out loud again.

“The admiral of the Queen’s Sailors is heading our way,” Jihan told Daewon, although he spoke loudly enough for the lot of them to hear. His voice was hoarse. “He brings news of Elyas Lowe’s venture into the Northern seas. Apparently, the bastard has decided to take charge in Hel’s absence and come hunt us down.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised,” the first mate said with a sigh. “Sabelsdottír is far too attractive of a target for him to pass even the opportunity to trap her. Not to mention the fact that she’s allied with us—us meaning you,” he snorted, “another Cardinal he believes has insulted the whole of his bloodline. I’d be surprised had he chosen not to come.”

Jihan emitted a sound of annoyance. “He wouldn’t have come unless he has a plan to put to action,” he said. “He’s too much of a coward to face us in battle, so if he has grown confident enough to sail our way, he must be planning something.”

Daewon only nodded his agreement and returned to his breakfast, although not before glancing Haeseon’s way with the same surprise the others of the August’s crew were exuding. Haeseon felt them all as if they were pricks of a needle against his skin, but if Jihan did, he ignored them all in favour of picking at his food when it was brought to him.

“Give him time, Haesae,” Seunggi told Haeseon in a hushed voice, a reassuring smile on his lips. “He’ll calm down soon enough.”

All Haeseon could do was nod and hope he was right.

The crews had all but finished their breakfast when the door flew open for the second time and Talya strode inside in a whirl of snow, the outside frost clinging to her hair and clothes, haphazardly tied together. “Good morning, you lot,” she said cheerily. “I hope you still have your heads after yesterday’s feast.” Those who had drank too much replied only with muted huffs or grumbling, which in turn made the Northern Cardinal laugh. “You lot are weak,” she chided with no proper reprimand. “I drank more than half of you, and I’ve been hunting since the Aurora faded.”

She exchanged a few words with the innkeep before turning around, searching. Her eyes swept over the crews gathered in the foyer, and the smile on her lips twitched and faltered when she saw Haeseon in the corner of the room. Just like it had everyone else, surprise overtook her features and her gaze flickered from him to Jihan and back. She looked like she might’ve said something, but Haeseon shook his head in a wordless plea for her to be quiet.

Although her reluctance was clear, Talya obliged and quickly took on her cheery smile once more as she turned to find Qasim at one of the tables by the opposite wall. Haeseon sank back against the wall with relief, one that vanished when he looked Jihan’s way and saw he had clenched his good hand against the surface of the table amidst their silent exchange.

Haeseon didn’t know whether it was the Northern Cardinal or himself that he resented for her finding out about Haeseon’s hearing first. Whichever way it was, it had guilt building in his throat until he might’ve choked on it.

It wasn’t long until one of the townsfolk came searching for Talya to tell her Iric Ried’s vessel was pulling into the docks. With the excitement of a child, she skipped towards the doors and beckoned Qasim and Jihan to follow her, almost as if the two of them had been an afterthought. While Jihan rose from his seat and Daewon, Jun, and Yeonshin followed, Haeseon hesitated, uncertain if whether or not the captain would want him there, or if his presence would only serve to worsen the tension that already hung heavy over his shoulders.

Seunggi was quick to take the decision out of his hands. “Come,” he said and pulled Haeseon out of his seat, smiling beneath the mask he settled over his face. “I want to hear what they have to say, and I can’t walk on my own. You’ll have to help me, Haesae.”

Although Haeseon had an inkling the quartermaster was feigning his eagerness—surely, the others would return to the tavern with Iric in tow to discuss their plans—he obliged without protest. Selfish as it might’ve been of him amidst their feud, he still did not want to be apart from Jihan, not any more than he already had to.

It had been only a night, but Haeseon missed him all the same.

“What of your son?” Jun was asking of Talya when they stepped outside into the snow. “I haven’t seen him since the beginning of the feast.”

“He’s with Iric,” she said. If she noticed the tinge of suspicion to the cook’s voice, she paid it no heed. “I sent Freyr south to Reykjavík to fetch him and bring him here in secret. If Elyas Lowe has come ashore at Iceland, the sight of a sailor’s warship near the town of my home would send him skittering back to whatever hole he has come from.”

She led their way to the docks, slow in her steps to ensure Haeseon and Seunggi wouldn’t fall behind. Haeseon was thankful for it, but he did not want to look at her and convey it; he could feel Jihan’s eyes on him and knew the captain worried for his brother’s state. His gaze was as heavy as it had always been, more so in his silence. Haeseon wished he would look away; he wanted to raise his head and meet Jihan’s eyes, but he was not brave enough for it.

Seunggi shifted oddly against his side, the jerky movement drawing Haeseon’s attention to him, but the quartermaster only smiled to dissuade his silent question. Confused, Haeseon looked ahead once more, although he couldn’t stop himself from throwing a glance at Jihan. The captain had turned away, but his jaw was clenched in agitation as if he had done so against his will.

His distress gave way to Haeseon’s own. He didn’t want the two brothers to fight because of him. It was the last thing he wanted, and he promised himself to tell Seunggi as much once the meeting was done with.

When Iric Ried arrived at the harbor of Ísafjörður, it was in a little sailboat hardly fit for an admiral of the Queen's Sailors. It was a fisherman’s vessel, and if not for the redness of his hair, Haeseon might not have recognised the sailor for who he was. He had discarded his pristine uniform for plain robes the likes of which the townsfolk of Ísafjörður wore, a fact Talya was quite eager to point out to him.

“Look at you, northerner,” she said smugly as soon as Iric stepped off the boat and onto the docks. “Have you come to join my crew?”

“I’d rather throw myself into the sea,” the admiral said dryly. He ignored her string of laughter and turned to Freyr, who had come ashore after him. “Thank you for bringing me here under guise, Sabelsson.”

Just like it had been when directed at Jihan, Iric’s gratitude was stiff, as if he loathed his own politeness for compelling him to voice it. Freyr was smug in the face of it, an air of superiority hiding behind his own courteous reply. “You’re most welcome, Admiral Ried,” he said with a wry smile. “As I’ve said time and time again during our time together, we are ever so grateful for the assistance you provide us with in our battle against the renegades.” 

A twitch crossed the admiral’s jaw and he looked like he might’ve said something in retort. In the end, all he did was snort and turn to face Jihan instead. “Cardinal Choi Jihan,” he said and tipped his head in a stiff bow. “We meet once more.”

“Admiral Ried,” was all the captain said. This time, he did not reciprocate the sailor’s polite gesture.

Iric appeared wholly unperturbed by the curtness of his reply. “Your time is becoming scarce, Sabelsdottír,” he said without preamble when he straightened up and turned to Talya. “We’ve ran Elyas Lowe to your shores. I know where his ship has cast anchor. My men stand ready to bear down on it, and if you do not act on your promise to be faster than me in regards to finding him, I’ll have no choice but to take him in myself.”

The smile on Talya’s lips turned into a pout, her lips pursing in discontent. “Simply because you know where his ship is doesn’t mean you know where Lowe himself has gone,” she said and motioned for the others to follow her back to the tavern. “If you attack his ship, he might slip into hiding.”

“Where could he possibly hide?” Iric asked. “Most of Iceland consists of mountains and frozen wasteland. Even if he did attempt to hide from us, he would be trapped.”

“You forget who he has allied himself with,” Talya pointed out. “No one has seen Hel since the glacier of Svalbard split open in our battle. More than two weeks have passed since. She might’ve come here, to join her ranks with Lowe’s.”

The admiral stared at her with incredulity. “You split open a glacier?” he asked loudly and looked at the others when she only laughed. “Tell me she’s jesting.”

“I doubt my captain was the cause of it,” Qasim said with no small amount of smugness in the face of Iric’s reaction, “but yes, the glacier did break apart amidst our battle against Hel and her followers.”

Something akin to desperation crossed the admiral’s face, as if he was waiting for someone to tell him it was not true. When no one did, he pressed a hand against his face and sighed, frustration clinging to his frame. “I heard tell of an earthquake passing through northern Svalbard,” he said, “but who could’ve imagined the lot of you would’ve been caught in the middle of it.”

The over-exaggerated cooing noise Talya emitted took Haeseon by surprise, so much so he nearly slipped on the frozen ground. “Were you worried about us, Iric?” she gushed and nudged him in the side. “How sweet you are.”

Had Haeseon been in a better mood, he might’ve laughed at the look of self-deprecation that settled over the admiral’s face. “Certainly not,” he said, although his words went lost in Talya’s string of cooing. “The world would’ve been spared from one of its greatest menaces had something happened to you and your crew.”

“If you say so,” the Northern Cardinal sing-songed. Upon her flippant reply, Iric raised his voice to argue his point further, but by then, they had reached the tavern, and the noise from within drowned out his insistences. In his exasperation, the admiral tugged at his hair and groaned, and Haeseon couldn’t help but sympathise.

Once inside, the clamor died down in an instant. Every last one of Talya’s pirates grew tense at the sight of the sailor, their prior mirth gone in the blink of an eye. Iric paid them no heed, ignoring the suspicion with which their eyes followed his movements as he went to take a seat at the table Talya led them to.

Haeseon did not join them; once the lot of them had taken their seats, the only one remaining was to Jihan’s left. Had the night’s events never happened, he would’ve sat next to the captain without hesitation, but now, he led Seunggi back to where they had sat in the corner of the room. He could feel Talya’s eyes on him as he walked, and he did not need to look at Jihan to know how tense he had become.

Daewon was the first to speak. “If Lowe has thrown anchor at the shores of this land, it must be due to his allegiance with Hel,” he said. “The timing of it matches too well. When news first spread of the goddess of death and her want for Sabelsdottír’s life, Lowe did not cross to the North immediately. He waited close to the borders for the opportune moment, which so happened to be when we lost track of Hel and her whereabouts nearly a fortnight prior.”

“There would have to be a reason for his sudden flare in courage to step ashore here,” Iric agreed, however reluctantly. “Had he only been escaping from me and my warships, he could’ve sailed anywhere in the North, but he chose the shores where he knows Sabelsdottír is waiting.”

“Which means it would be pointless to seek out his ship,” Talya said and tapped a finger against the table. “We know what he wants, and we know what Hel wants. If he heard you had taken his ship, the two of them might disappear and reform their plans, and strike when we have even less of a warning than we do now.”

“And what of you?” Iric retorted. “He will come North. Whether or not he has allied with Hel, he would not remain in Reykjavík, not when ships of the Queen’s justice sail so close to the coast. The only way he would go is here, where he would find you.”

“Good,” Talya said with a lopsided grin. “I want him to find me. I will make him regret it when he does.”

A scowl dug its way into the admiral’s brow, but Jihan spoke before he could voice his concerns. “Don’t be so fucking rash,” he said, so loudly Daewon jerked in his seat next to him, startled. “He would not come this way if he didn’t have a plan at the ready. He doesn’t know the North. He knows he doesn’t know the North. No matter how arrogant he is, he’s not stupid enough to challenge you where you have the obvious advantage.”

His outburst had the smile slipping from Talya’s lips. The surprise on her face was genuine, but while it rendered her momentarily speechless, her son was quick to reply in her stead. “You sound awfully sure of yourself,” Freyr said with a scoff. The tone of his voice was the same one with which he had spoken to Haeseon every time his aim had been to disregard whatever it was he had said, full of spite and mockery.

Where Haeseon had reacted with silence and misplaced patience, however, Jihan did the opposite. “Aye,” he spat with all the venom of a deadly serpent, “because unlike you, what I say actually carries some fucking weight. I don’t make a habit out of behaving like a stuck-up piece of shit to hide my own incompetence, nor do I hide behind my mother’s skirts, so when I tell you what I know is true of scum like Elyas Lowe, you keep your fucking mouth shut and you listen!”

His voice had grown just shy of a shout, and it echoed in the silence of the tavern once he was done. Freyr looked as if Jihan had struck him, no trace of his smugness remaining. Talya’s eyes were wider than ever, so still in her shock she might as well have been turned to stone by some spell. Daewon stared at his hands where they were clasped on top of the table, and Iric stared at Jihan as if he had grown a second head.

Qasim was the only one who did not seem surprised. He sighed and shook his head, and for once, he did not smile.

All around them, the pirates of all three crews looked ready to rise to their respective captain’s defence, as if the camaraderie they had formed over the past weeks had been torn asunder.

It’s my fault, Haeseon thought, clutching hard onto the furs around his shoulders. If I had only told him sooner, he would not be so angry.

It was Iric who eventually broke the suffocating silence, unaffected as he was by what Jihan had said. “I agree with Choi Jihan,” he stated, his words firm whereas his gaze flickered between the three captains with uncertainty. “While Lowe lacks brute strength, he is cunning enough to have reigned as Cardinal of the West for nearly a decade. It wouldn’t be wise to expect him to come charging blindly into battle. He will prepare a subtle attack, and you must be ready to counter it.”

It was as if Talya did not immediately realise he had spoken. She only stared at Jihan, who met her gaze without yielding, all the while the rest of them waited. For her to reply or to give a command, Haeseon did not know.

When she finally turned away to look at Iric, her voice was every bit as stiff as her frame. “What do you suggest we do, then?” she asked.

“What you should’ve done from the start,” the admiral said. “Form a perimeter around a base of your choosing, be it this town or someplace else. Lay traps around its edges so that when he decides to strike, he will be the one caught off guard. Have patience,” for the first time, there was worry in his voice, “and do not let yourself be baited to a place of no return.”

“We cannot take the same kind of risk now as we did when we went looking for Hel,” Daewon said. He spoke far more carefully than he had only moments prior, with a formality he reserved only for strangers to the August’s crew. “Elyas Lowe may not be a god, but if the North lost its Cardinal to the likes of him because of an act of recklessness, these seas will fall under the rule of those who killed the Long-toothed Tiger.”

Conflict spread across Talya’s face, as if what they suggested went against the very nature of her being. She pressed her lips tightly together to form an expression that was all but distraught, and when she finally conceded, she did so with a sigh that carried all her brightness and glee with it. “Have it your way,” she said. “We will bury traps in the snow around Ísafjörður and then—” She hesitated, as if speaking the words would hurt her lips. “Then we’ll wait.”

-

oh gODDDDDD LOOK AT EVERYTHING STEADILY GOING TO SHIT

Y’ALL WERE ALREADY NOT GETTING ALONG BUT LIKE NOW IT’S SO MUCH WORSE GOOD JOB THERE JIHAN I KNOW YOU’RE MAD BUt pls just calm down and go hug your songbird oh my god ;__________;

also freyr is still a li'l bish and i don't like him so haha sucker how's it feel to have jihan yell at you LOL

you remember how frustrating it was in tStS when haeseon and jihan (sjhdjshd feels weird to refer to them with these names when the entire first book was written as yoonmin) were fighting and then dancing around one another and then just being awkward about their feelings? like back when you just wanted to smush them together and have them be in love?? wELL THAT’S HOW I’M FEELING RIGHT NOW OKAY THESE TWO NEED TO BE ALL HAPPY AND MUSHY AND SOFT AGAIN I DON’T LIKE IT NOW THAT THEY’RE UPSET :(((

man tstn sucks >:T it made haeseon and jihan sad >:T this book sUCKS >:T

it better not suck this much next week or i swear to hEL—


	21. chapter 20 - In Waiting

would y'all believe i had almost fallen asleep when i realised i hadn't posted the chapter yetjshdhsd i'm sorry i've just moved back into my uni dormitory it's been hectic as sHET so i kinda :D almost forgot :D:D

bUT HERE IT IS AND BOI 

-

When Iric Ried sailed away from Ísafjörður to return to his warships, he left in his wake a heaviness the likes of which Haeseon had never felt before. Not only had Jihan’s ire carried strong throughout the rest of the meeting, but Talya had been stiff and Freyr quiet, and the air had been hard to breathe. No one had dared utter a sound outside of what was necessary. By the time their plans were made and Iric took his leave, neither of the Cardinals had uttered more than a handful of words of agreement to what the admiral had suggested they do.

Five days, Iric gave them. Five days to form a barricade around Ísafjörður and catch Elyas Lowe in one of them. On the morning of the fourth, the admiral would command his men to seize the Western Cardinal’s ship and all those present, and move inland to search for Lowe himself. 

Only after he had left the town of Ísafjörður did Talya regain some of her usual spirit. She asked the townsfolk to provide them with rope and binds, and shovels for digging in the snow. On a map, she drew a circle around the town and crossed the locations where they would raise their traps. As Ísafjörður stood on the shore of a fjord, most of its defence would come from the sea and the ridges rising around it.

The traps would hardly be enough to stop the whole of Elyas Lowe’s crew in its tracks, but they could disrupt an enemy’s approach or even cause a retreat, should the Western Cardinal lose his courage. Each trap would also carry a bell in its ropes, one Talya, with her Blessing’s hearing, could hear even from so far away. The blacksmith and his apprentices immediately set to work to cast the chimes they would need, while others bound rope or hewed the correct pins for the traps.

Haeseon helped wherever he could. The townsfolk insisted on having him rest, shooing him away when he approached those carrying crates upon crates of nails and metal ingots to the smithy, but he persisted. Not only did he want to stand by while the rest of them went to work, he also didn’t fancy the thought of having to sit in his corner of the tavern’s foyer with nothing to distract him from his beloved’s presence.

That was not to say working amidst the northerners was a very pleasant affair. After Jihan’s outburst during the meeting, a chill had seeped into the mannerisms of both Talya and Freyr’s men. They no longer smiled when Haeseon tipped his head in greeting nor when he offered to take some weight off whatever they were carrying. They said nothing at all, only looked at him with a brow arched in dubiousness before reluctantly allowing him to help.

It made Haeseon nervous, but he knew he could trust Talya. He knew that even if her pirates turned on Jihan and the August’s crew, she would not let anyone come to harm.

As if summoned by his thoughts, the Northern Cardinal fell in next to Haeseon on his way to bring woods for the fires to the blacksmith’s shop. “So,” she said and took half of the stack he was carrying into her own arms, “you told your Black Fox of your ear.”

Haeseon eyed her with concern. She looked more lively now, with most of her tension having faded from her frame, but some of it still clung to her jaw when she offered him a small smile. Haeseon returned it, or attempted to at least; his lips formed a grimace rather than a smile. “Is it so obvious?” he asked in a mumble, even though he already knew just how obvious it was.

“Yes.” When he pressed his lips together at Talya’s bluntness, her tone softened considerably. “With how sweet the two of you have been since you came,” she said, “I’m certain even the townsfolk know something has happened. They worry. As do I.”

Haeseon heaved a weary sigh and momentarily tightened his grip on the firewood in his arms. His hands did not tremble, although he wished they would’ve, simply so he’d have an excuse to wring them and rub at the skin of his palms. “He’s angry,” he said sullenly. “It’s just as you told me when you first realised. He’s angry and hurt, and—I don’t know what to do. Seunggi told me to give him time, but…”

Another sigh passed his lips, carried out by the ache in his chest. “Is it selfish of me to miss him?” he asked. “It’s my fault we’re fighting, and the guilt I feel is—it’s indescribable, yet the only thing I want is to be in his arms. To hold him in mine.”

The thought had been strongest amidst the meeting, when Jihan’s patience had ran dry. It was something he had always done; whenever the captain’s mood would flare, Haeseon had always been able to soothe him either with sweet words or a calming touch. He hated to see Jihan so upset and be helpless to help him find his calm.

“It’s not selfish,” Talya said and shook her head. “If you could be in his arms, there would be no conflict between you. I know you feel guilty even for thinking of wanting to be with him again, but it is a natural thing to want.” Her smile was a bit more certain this time. “You did not hurt him on purpose. He knows this as well, and with time, he will accept it and come back to you.”

“I suppose,” Haeseon said quietly, still wholly unconvinced.

“You could tell him of what you’re thinking,” the Northern Cardinal offered. “Of how you feel.”

“I did,” he said, clutching onto the firewood. “Last night, when I told him of my ear. I told him everything else as well. I said I knew I shouldn’t have kept it from him and that he was right to be angry, but he still…” He did not let himself say any more; he didn’t want to think of it now. When he thought of Jihan and the way he had turned away from him, both after his admission and earlier that morning, it made him want to cry all over again, although he was fairly certain there were no more tears in him.

Instead, he peered at Talya from the corner of his eye and attempted to see the truth of the state of her mind. She’d been strung unnaturally taut after Jihan’s harsh words and Iric’s pleas for her to be careful. Never before had Haeseon seen her so distraught; it couldn’t possibly have been caused by a mere reprimand of her rashness, yet it had settled over her like chains of iron. She appeared find now, with a reassuring smile on her lips as she led their way to the smithy, but Haeseon wanted to be certain.

“Talya,” he said and waited until she turned his way, “are you alright?”

She blinked owlishly at him. “Me?” she wondered, as if there was someone else walking by their side.

“You,” Haeseon said, nodding. “The meeting with Admiral Ried was—I didn’t think it would—” He sighed for the third time and cast his gaze down to the stack of firewood in his arms. “I’m sorry for what happened. It was my fault Jihan was—is so tense.” He glanced at her and attempted a smile. “He didn’t mean what he said.”

“Did he not?” The smile on Talya’s lips turned rueful. The chuckle that spilled from her lips was without glee, although upon sigh of Haeseon’s concern, she only shook her head and heaved a sigh to match his own. “I can’t blame him for what he said,” she muttered. “Not truly. I am rash and I do seek the thrill of battle where it would be wiser to stand aside. And Freyr…”

Her smile, wry as it was, faltered at the mention of her son. She hesitated, a crease etching its way into the skin between her brows. “Well,” she said after parting and closing her lips several times, “it is hard to brush aside words I know to be true. Don’t misunderstand,” she was quick to add, “Freyr has never hidden behind me from a battle, either one of wit or strength, but the rest?” She moved her arm as if she’d forgotten what she was carrying and nearly dropped the lot of the firewood in her attempt to run a hand through her hair. When she regained her composure, she emitted a weary chuckle.

“It is not something you want to see in your child,” Talya said quietly. “I realised the tone of his voice became different when he spoke to you or any of Choi Jihan’s pirates. It became… colder, as did the rest of him.”

Haeseon wanted to ask why she’d said nothing of it if she had noticed, but she turned to him before he had the chance. “It is a difficult thing, even for a mother,” she said. “I don’t know what has made him so—” As if she failed to find the right words, the Northern Cardinal muttered what was likely a curse beneath her breath and shook her head. “I’ve sent him to the Northern mainland,” she said, “to fetch something for me that we can use in our battle against both Elyas Lowe and Hel and her followers. When he returns, we—I will speak with him. I promise.”

The look in her eyes was all but pleading, and there was little Haeseon could do to blame her or even be angry with her. “Thank you,” he said instead, although he said it carefully. Her tension eased considerably and the smile she offered him in return was more genuine than the first. He returned it tentatively, and the two said nothing more on their way to the smithy.

Only when they left the sweltering heat of the shop’s fires did Haeseon think of something to say, however private of a question it might’ve been. “You and Admiral Ried,” he began, continuing only after Talya had given him an encouraging nod. “Are you truly… friends? For an admiral of the law and a pirate to get along without conflict means you must be close, but he—I’ve never seen him—he doesn’t appear to enjoy your company.”

It was not how he’d intended to phrase his wonderment, but Talya only snorted in amusement. “Don’t let Iric’s stiffness fool you,” she said. “He has always been loathe to show his true emotions to the world; I doubt even his own mother has seen him smile more than a handful of times. Did you know,” her lips curled into a toothy grin, so wide it took up half of her face, “that he kissed me once?”

Haeseon turned his head so quickly his balance was thrown out of order. He might’ve staggered if not for Talya holding onto his arm, even though she was laughing so fervently it was a wonder she could stand upright herself. “H-he did what?” Haeseon exclaimed, his voice made loud by shock. Never could he have imagined the stone-faced admiral to have done such a thing to Talya, with whom he so persistently denied sharing even a friendship.

“He did!” It took the Northern Cardinal a long moment to sober up enough to speak. When she did, she dabbed at her eyes to rid them of gleeful tears, her cheeks flushed red with laughter and the cold. “He came upon my ship amidst a battle against some Southern invaders,” she said breathlessly. “His arrival distracted me, and a rain of cannonfire hit the hull of my ship and threw me into the sea. I was hardly injured by it,” she was quick to add when Haeseon’s eyes widened with worry. “I merely lost my balance and fell over the rail. The seas were calm that day, so I was not in danger.”

Her mirth grew and made her press her lips together over and over to keep from chortling through her tale. “I still don’t know why,” she said, “but Iric was the one who pulled me from the water. He leapt into the sea and dragged me aboard his ship. I had hardly swallowed enough water for it to matter, but our Righteous Flame, he—” Her words trailed off into an unsteady sound of suppressed laughter, “he must’ve been struck by panic and thought I was drowning. To save me, he,” she clapped her hands together in glee, “he pressed his lips against mine to breathe air into my lungs.”

When Haeseon’s mouth fell open in disbelief, the Northern Cardinal couldn’t help herself any longer. She descended into a string of cackles and sank into a crouch on the snowy ground, laughing far too hard to remain standing on her own two feet. “Oh gods,” Haeseon said in a startled whisper, eyes wide at the mere thought. “He tried to—I can’t fathom he would ever—why would he ever do that?”

“I don’t know,” Talya managed through her chortling. “We had known each other for a year, a-and he would always refuse to hear it when I spoke of friendship between us. He would always say he’ll find peace only on the day I’m lost to the sea, yet when it looks like that day has come, he chooses to save me. And steal a kiss from me,” she added, and managed to keep a straight face for a mere second before she descended into another fit of laughter.

Haeseon couldn’t help but smile as he watched his friend slowly regain her composure, breathless and fanning her face even in the Northern cold. Her previous tension had faded in the face of her fit of glee, leaving her every bit as cheerful as he knew her to be.

“Ohh,” she hummed when she could finally speak without losing her breath once more. “I like this. We can still smile and laugh amongst one another even when things don’t go the way we’d like.”

Her words made Haeseon falter in his content, guilt quick to raise its head within the depths of his chest. He threw a glance in the direction of the tavern, but Talya made him look away with a gentle hand on his cheek. “It’s a good thing, sweet Haeseon,” she said. “Whatever has happened and whatever we have done, no one deserves a life of misery. Laughter is everyone’s right, even when you believe it’s not.”

Kind as it was, her comfort was hard for Haeseon to take to heart. The thought of Jihan and how he had been hurt made laughter itself seem unfair. By what right could Haeseon be content enough to smile while his beloved suffered through the misery Haeseon himself had caused him?

His thoughts must’ve shown on his face, for Talya sighed and patted his cheek. “It will be alright,” she promised. “If not today, then at least before the lot of us dine with gods in the halls of Valhöll.”

-

Over the following days, Jihan and Talya’s crews worked to ready the traps they had built along the perimeter they had drawn around the town of Ísafjörður. It took longer than Haeseon had expected; as precaution, they built the traps only after sunset and only one at the time, with a group of three or four venturing out at once, dressed in white from head to toe. When they were done, they would return to the town, where they’d wait for two hours before heading out to lay down another contraption into the snow.

“We don’t know where Lowe is,” Talya told Haeseon when he asked why they had to do it in such a slow manner. “For all we know, he could be watching us now, lying in wait for a moment to strike. If all of us went at once, he would sense the traps and know where not to step when the time comes.”

What she said made sense, yet it did little to stave off Haeseon’s nervousness. It made him ache to sit by Seunggi’s side and wait for Jihan, Jun, and two of Talya’s crew to return when they went to lay down one of their traps to the north-west. In the darkness of the night, their garb made them one with the snow, but if what the Northern Cardinal had said was true, a man who dearly wanted Jihan dead could’ve been watching them carry out their task.

When the four returned unharmed within the hour, Haeseon clutched hard onto the stool on which he sat to keep from throwing himself into his beloved’s arms.

With the prospect of battle drawing near, tension hung heavy over Ísafjörður. Even after every trap had been lain and the pirates remained within the town’s borders, they did so in waiting, constantly expecting to hear the chime of the bells or cries of battle. Talya barely slept, waking day and night to ensure she would not miss the warning only she could hear.

Four times each day, a few of the pirates would walk along the perimeter they had drawn outside of Ísafjörður to ensure the traps were still intact, and that no trespassing footsteps had drawn near. Mostly, they were Talya’s men, who knew the land and the traps they had fashioned better than any of the August’s crew. When Yeonshin asked to go, Qasim went with him to explain to him how to go about securing the perimeter in words he could properly understand.

On the fourth day, Haeseon volunteered for the midday patrol. Tense as he was in waiting for the battle, he’d began to feel trapped within the town, as if the air within its borders had grown stale. When he raised his hand, Yeonshin did as well, and the surgeon pulled Hisashi to his feet and declared he had grown restless and needed to work the muscles around his injury. The swordsman had scoffed and grouched in reply, but said nothing to protest the hike.

Talya chose Refur to accompany them and show them how to walk unseen in the snow. The blonde archer was content to do as told; amongst his fellow pirates who sailed under the Northern Cardinal, Refur seemed least concerned over the tension still lingering between the two crews. He passed a set of white robes and boots to Haeseon with a small smile, and jerked his head towards the rooms upstairs in the tavern, where he could change.

In the privacy of the room that should’ve been his and Jihan’s to share, Haeseon stripped out of his furs and pulled the bleached garb over his shoulders. The fabric was rougher, likely a result of the process of whitening the wool until it could blend with the snow. The boots and pants were the same. By the time Haeseon was fully dressed, his movements felt stiff and clumsy, which he feared would only intensify once he was out in the deep snows.

He had just fastened the last clasp on his shoes when someone knocked on the door. He hurried to pull it open, thinking Yeonshin must’ve been waiting for him to be done changing, and had his heart stutter to a painful halt in his chest when he found himself standing face to face with Jihan.

The captain’s gaze flickered across his face as if he was the one who was surprised to be in Haeseon’s presence. His eyes were a bit wider than they usually were, which made it all the more obvious when they settled for a moment on Haeseon’s right ear before finally coming up to meet his eyes. The furrow of his brow was still there, as was the tension in his jaw, but he looked as if there was something he wanted to say.

Haeseon held his breath in waiting. Every cell of him cried out in yearning; this was the closest he had stood to Jihan in days, yet it was much too far all the same. He did not know what to do. Part of him wanted to cry while the other wanted to catch the captain’s hand as he lowered it after his knock and never let go of it again.

Someone called Haeseon’s voice from downstairs, but Haeseon did not move. He couldn’t. He needed to hear what his beloved had come to tell him. He needed it more than air.

It took Jihan several attempts to find his voice, his lips parting and closing around nothing but his breath. He grew frustrated, as he always did when he struggled, and sighed and raised a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. When he lowered it again, he spoke, although he did so very quietly. “Songbird,” he said. The tiredness to his voice made Haeseon want to cry. “Are you sure you want to go?”

He always asked. Even now, in spite of his anger, Jihan still asked, and Haeseon’s heart might’ve broken for it.

“Yes,” he whispered. He hadn’t intended to speak so quietly, but his voice wouldn’t come properly. “I’m not—it’s only a patrol. I will only secure the traps.”

The captain nodded, stiff as it was, and said nothing more. He only looked at Haeseon and Haeseon only looked at him, and all the conflict he saw portrayed on his beloved’s face was mirrored within himself. He wanted to speak. He wanted to tell Jihan he was sorry that he had hidden things from him. He wanted to talk and talk and talk until they returned to the way they had been, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not as much as part his lips.

“Haeseon, what are you—oh.”

Haeseon startled upon Yeonshin’s sudden call and turned sharply towards its source. The surgeon looked sheepish where he stood at the top of the stairs, worry marring his brow as he looked between him and Jihan. “Pardon,” he said with no small amount of care. “Should I… do you want me to tell the others to wait, or—”

“No.” The captain turned away from Haeseon, who truly did want to cry then. “It’s fine, Yeonshin,” he said, even though the stiffness of him contradicted his words, “we—I was only—” He closed his eyes and sighed, a sound laden with frustration and ire, and when he looked up again, he looked ten years older than he had mere moments prior. “Go,” he muttered without looking at Haeseon, “and be safe.”

With a quivering exhale, Haeseon nodded. He didn’t dare look at Jihan, knowing he would crack in an instant if he did. “Yes,” he said thinly and carefully moved past his beloved, taking care to not brush against him no matter how dearly Haeseon wanted to feel his touch, if even for a moment.

I’m so sorry, he thought, over and over. Please know I’m sorry, Jihan.

Yeonshin stopped him halfway down the stairs and pulled a piece of cloth from the pocket of his robes. “Here,” he said quietly and held the handkerchief out for Haeseon to take. “Wipe your eyes before joining the others in the foyer. Neither Seunggi nor Sabelsdottír will let you leave if they realise you’ve been crying.”

Haeseon hadn’t realised it himself, so he gratefully took the offered piece and used it to wipe his cheeks clean of any proof of his sorrow. “Thank you,” he whispered and passed the handkerchief back to Yeonshin, who looked at him with concern.

“Keep it,” the surgeon said. He turned his head both up and down the stairs to ensure no one would come across them or hear. “Would you tell me what is going on between the two of you? Whatever happened, it’s hurting both of you, and it is painful to see you so miserable. I don’t know if I’ll be able to help, but,” he offered Haeseon a small, sympathetic smile, “at least I can listen. I’m good at listening.”

It was true; Yeonshin had been the one to help him when he’d struggled with calling on his Blessing, as well as his growing feelings for Jihan. Thus Haeseon nodded, a few more tears spilling from his eyes, and when the surgeon pulled him into a comforting embrace and hushed him through his muffled sobs, he wondered what on earth had compelled him to keep his secret to himself for so long.

-

i’m so sad you don’t understand i’m so sAD

it’s not like they wANT to be mad at each other it’s not like they ENJOY being apart they want to be together but god it’s like they’ve forgotten hOW AND THAT SHET HURTS OKAY IT H U R T S

GODDAMMIT

can i just scrap this plot point? can i just... have them be all happy and in love again in the next chapter? like nothing ever happened? that sounds so good yes i should probably just do that

also talya is a goddamn trooper okay she tries so hard to keep the mood from turning sour eventhoughthatapparentlymakesherblindtofreyrsshituH like she just wants everyone to smile and be at peace, especially haesae, even when they're being hunted down by hel and lowe and uGH

also lmao at iric/talya :D:D:D::D:D:::D::D if you listen closely you can hear qasim laughing his ass off in the far distance~~~

nOW

COME ON YEONSHIN GIVE SOME OF THAT LIFE-SAVING ADVICE THAT'LL HAVE HAESEON RUNNING BACK INTO JIHAN'S ARMS AND KISS HIM AND TALK ABOUT THEIR PROBLEMS UNTIL THEY'RE GROSS AND IN LOVE AGAIN

pls :(

tStNchapters  
95 Likes

Jenna Meloche  
My hearteu :'''''''(

5mo  
lattaemeria  
hello random but i cant believe its already been 20 chapters........ w hat...... i remember u posting the prologue like it was last week......... :(((((

ANYWAY this tension is so !! so sad :(( and tense :((( (no shit) but seriously ughgh its so painfullll it sucks that the light mood all the different crews had has just. all gone to shit :( i know haeseon and jihan will make up eventually bc its, well, yknow, haeseon and jihan, they have a wedding to plan, but i hope everyone else can at least sort of make up again yknow :/// once the lovebirds are back to being happy cute lovebirds again ://// 

the fact that talya can hear those bells from so far away is amazing but also terrifying. especially considering its /talya/. like. what kinds of things has she heard??? she couldve heard aNYTHING talking anywhere relatively near her sounds so scary aksjadjfsk

i feel so bad for poor haeseon tho :(((( like no baby it is ok to miss being with ur love and holding him and having him hold u even if ur fighting bc u made a mistake :(((( i just wanna hug him and tell him everything will b ok akdjkjfskfsj JIHAN GO HUG UR SONGBIRD GODDAMNIT HE NEEDS A HUG (AND SO DO U) at least he has talya to comfort him and tell him all the things i wished he'd hear. talya is such a good friend :( im glad haeseon stopped to ask her if she was ok too though because i feel like talya just always seems ok...??

but also BLESS that she acknowledges freyr's changed behavior around haeseon and the crew!! thats something that always made me go ??? bc how could she not know :( SO im so glad she we know she recognizes that lol. i guess he must really be different around her, away from the august crew. kind of makes me interested to see what he's like when hes not busy being an asshole bUT unfortunately all i remember is him being an asshole so unTIL he redeems himself i still dont like him >:| i hope talya's talk with him is actually effective lol

also hmmMM very interesting to see iric actually has FEELINGS wow who knew !! lmao seriously tho its kind of cute to see how much he cares about talya despite what acts like. it really seemed like he was so sick of her LOL. its also cute to be able to see talya and haeseon laugh together when theyve both been dealing with shit :'))) i'm glad they have each other 

does jihan actually still sleep in that room they were supposed to share together....?? ik he didnt right after their fight, but did that change after that... part of me feels like it wouldn't be right but at the same time part of me is really dumb so ?????? ANYWAY i wasnt expecting jihan to be on the other side of that door either :((((( talk about heart stopping :(((( this whole scene was so PAINFUL i really hate you oh my god just from the way jihan was taking haeseon in and the way he sounded tired and how that hurt haeseon and how he reALLY CAME TO ASK IF HAESEON WAS SURE. AND TOLD HIM. TO BE SAFE. it hurts :(((( pls stop :(((((((( 

i rlly hope yeonshin can give him that life saving advice but also the fact that u said that at the end of ur notes makes me suspicious >__> somethings gonna happen. i can smell it. the life saving advice doesnt happen. or it does happen but haeseon does not get the opportunity to execute it before he leaves. or something happens to haeseon while hes out before they can talk and make up. i DONT KNOW but i have no trust :(


	22. chapter 21 - A Gemstone's Likeness

so, um, word of advice, get ‘em tissues and bRACE YOURSELVES

Jonas Göbel - Empty Streets 

BrunuhVille - Black Heart

(jsdhjs i feel like my music choices are the same for the same type of scenes, so if you know what kind of scenes i recommend these songs for, you know what you're up against)

-

The land surrounding the town of Ísafjörður was white as far as the eye could see. The fjord’s hills rose high along the horizon, barely separable from one another, buried as they were by a thick layer of snow. The whiteness was untouched apart from the tracks lain by the patrols that had walked the same trail earlier that morning; without properly realising it, Haeseon did his best to avoid stepping outside the tracks, loathe to disturb the pretty scenery.

Refur guided their way with Hisashi following some paces behind, and Yeonshin and Haeseon making up the rear. The swordsman did not share Haeseon’s want to preserve the imagery the northern land made; in what was likely boredom, he jabbed the sheath of his sword into the snow next to his feet whenever he took a step and yanked it back out, as if he was stabbing some invisible monsters hiding beneath the untouched surface.

He had recovered well from the wound in his side, but with his health, Hisashi’s ire had returned as well. Unwilling to cause a spat for something as simple as breathing too loudly in his presence, Haeseon deliberately left several paces between himself and the swordsman. He made sure to stay close enough to Refur to react should it be necessary, but even so, he dragged his feet as much as he dared.

It wasn’t only to stay clear of Hisashi and his foul mood; even though he had promised to tell Yeonshin about his ear and his struggle with Jihan, he hesitated now, nervousness coaxing his heart into beating hard and fast against the bones in his chest. He did not want the surgeon to be angry in the same way Jihan had been. In fact, he did not want the surgeon to be angry at all, but he knew it was an unlikely thing.

Thus he hesitated.

Thankfully, Yeonshin didn’t push him. He walked a few paces ahead of Haeseon, only breaking his silence every now and then either to mutter something incoherent about the northern cold, or to tell Hisashi to not slump his posture while walking. Every now and then, he would glance at Haeseon from over his shoulder, but when their eyes met, all he would do was offer him a kind smile and turn back around.

The first trap they reached lay less than half an hour’s walk from the outskirts of the town. It was a wonder Refur could find it with such ease; to Haeseon, it was invisible in the snow, the ropes and springs hidden beneath the surface. The blonde archer secured it with utmost care, moving around the ties as if he could see through the blanket of white. Haeseon knew the triggers were sensitive—Talya had shown him how the traps worked, how they would snare those who were caught and bind them to the ground—thus he watched in awe as Refur maneuvered it with such ease.

On the way to the second trap, Haeseon did his best to muster all the courage he had in him, his lips pressed together as he stared at Yeonshin’s back. He thought of what words would be best to use, what he should say first and how, yet for every plan he discarded, every new one seemed all the more useless.

Finally, when they had passed the second trap and were headed for the third, Haeseon picked up his pace until he could reach out and take hold of the surgeon’s white robes. “Yeonshin,” he said and felt a tremor pass through his hand when the doctor turned to look at him. There was no urgency to his expression, no impatience. There was only genuine curiosity and the same feeling he always exuded, the one that assured Haeseon he would do his very best to help him with whatever it was that ailed him.

He drew a lungful of cold air and made himself hold Yeonshin’s gaze. “I’m half deaf,” he said. He had nearly whispered, but his voice was loud in the quietness of the North all the same. “I should’ve told you months ago, but—my right ear can’t hear a thing.”

Even in his shock, the surgeon let Haeseon speak uninterrupted. He listened in silence when Haeseon began his tale of how he’d first realised he had lost the sensation in his right ear and why he’d chosen to keep it to himself. He absorbed it quietly, dumbfounded as he was, and did not rush Haeseon when he hesitated, nor demand any answers from him. All Yeonshin did was look at him, until Haeseon felt the surgeon’s gaze might carve their way into his skull.

“I should’ve told you,” he said again once he was done. He hung his head as they walked, staring into the crumpled snow of the tracks he was following. “I believed I had a good reason for making it a secret. I thought—I imagined I was sparing all of you a knowledge that would do you more harm than good, but when I told Jihan, I…” His voice tapered off and he thought back to how hurt his beloved had been. How hurt he still was to this day. “I was wrong,” he whispered. “I should’ve told you immediately, and I’m sorry that I didn’t.”

It took Yeonshin several long moments to find his voice after Haeseon was done. Either he did not know what words to speak or how to even form them. Just like Jihan’s had done, the surgeon’s eyes flickered to Haeseon’s neck where he knew the scars spread down to his shoulder and up to his ear. He furrowed his brow, but it was no one of anger.

“Are you alright?” was the first thing he asked. It was the farthest from what Haeseon had expected, and when he only stared, Yeonshin’s frown deepened. “I imagine the pain of having your eardrum shatter was lost in everything else the storm’s strike caused you, but even so,” he nodded towards Haeseon’s ear, “it must’ve been hard.”

In his surprise, Haeseon floundered for an answer. “No, I didn’t,” he began in his hurry to ease the surgeon’s concern. He did not feel like he deserved it; his hand flew up to press against his ear as if it would hide what had happened from the surgeon. “It hasn’t been hurting. There hasn’t been—I hardly notice it, I promise. I mean, I notice it because I can’t hear properly, but—”

He ceased his rambling when Yeonshin sighed. It wasn’t an exasperated sound, but a weary one, as if Haeseon’s words were what he had begrudgingly expected. “Of course,” he said somewhat dryly, “you won’t allow anyone to worry about you. I shouldn’t be so surprised to hear you’ve kept this secret from us.”

It was a jest, yet it made Haeseon want to protest all the same. He parted his lips to do just that, only to have to close them again upon the realisation that there was nothing he could say in rebuttal that wasn’t a lie.

“I understand now,” Yeonshin said when Haeseon’s silence carried. “Jihan would certainly be upset to realise you’ve gone so long without telling us, let alone him. You told him at the night of the feast, didn’t you? After Sabelsdottír teased you about…”

He left the rest of the sentence unspoken, as if he worried it was a forbidden thing to mention now. His hesitancy made the ever-present ache in Haeseon’s chest flare, but he pressed his lips together and nodded all the same.

Yeonshin gave a thoughtful hum in reply to his confirmation and fell into another momentary silence. When he spoke again, his tone was not unkind, but one that Haeseon knew meant he would be nothing but blunt. “I can’t fault Jihan for being angry,” he said, frowning. “It is one thing to not tell any of us, but to keep it from the one you share your bed and heart with for so long…” He heaved a sigh. “I understand why you chose to hide it, but he was bound to react the way he did.”

It was hardly anything Haeseon did not already know, but it hurt to be reminded of it all the same. To be reminded of the pain he had caused his beloved with his intention to do just the opposite, and how helpless he now was to make things right once more.

“I know,” he mumbled. “I don’t blame him for it. He’s justified in his anger, and I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know,” he paused to swallow the thickness in his throat, “how to find my way back to him. I don’t know if he wants to be left alone or if he wants me to approach him. I asked Talya for advice and she told me to give him time, but—”

“Wait, wait a moment.” Yeonshin came to a halt in the snow. “Sabelsdottír knew?” he asked. The mildness of his tone faded to give way for what was startlingly similar to dread. “She knew about your ear before Jihan did?”

“I didn’t tell her,” Haeseon said quickly. Just as it had been important that Jihan had known, it was every bit as important that the surgeon did as well. “I would never have told her before telling any of you, I swear it. She realised it after we had come to the North. Her Blessing makes her keen to things like this.”

In spite of his words, Yeonshin’s expression became grim, his brow knitting together in discontent and obvious worry. “Shit,” he hissed under his breath and reached up to run a hand through his hair. “This is different from mere anger, isn’t it? Gods, it might’ve been easier for him if you had told her first rather than…” The sigh he gave this time was heavy with weariness, as if he was suddenly thirty years older.

“What do you mean?” Haeseon asked, the ache in him growing stronger still with concern flooding his veins as well upon the surgeon’s agitation. “Yeonshin, why do you say that?”

Yeonshin drew his bottom lip between his teeth and shook his head before resuming walking to not fall too far behind Refur and Hisashi. “I don’t believe he’s angry with you,” he said lowly. “At least not anymore.”

Had his expression been less grim, Haeseon might’ve taken comfort in his words. “What do you mean?” he asked again. His voice grew shrill in his nervousness; in his chest, the canary cried out in alarm.

Upon realising Haeseon’s frantic state of worry, Yeonshin reeled himself in and rubbed at his brow while he struggled to find the right words. When he did, he grimaced, as if they tasted sour on his tongue. “By now, you must know how hard Jihan is on himself,” he said. “How hard it is for him to let go of his mistakes and the duty he has convinced himself he must do on his own.”

Haeseon winced at the mere thought of it; how many times had he wondered whether or not his beloved would ever be able to forgive himself for the things he had done in their past? How many times had he tried to convince Jihan it was not only his duty to ensure the August’s crew was safe?

“It is not a pleasant thing to tell, and it might hurt you more to hear,” Yeonshin said, “but when things have become like this, you, out of all of us, should know.” It took him a long moment to find his words. He parted his lips and closed them again, not in hesitation, but because he truly did not know how to describe what worried him so. He struggled until he grew frustrated with himself, and settled for the plainest way he could speak it.

“Jihan,” he began, “is beautiful. I don’t mean in looks, but the whole of his being. He’s rare, like a wild jewel. His core is—it is everything anyone could ever ask for, more precious than anything I’ve ever known, but he’s jagged and rough to the touch. Around his precious heart, he has raised as many walls as he could possibly build, because this world is not kind to that which is precious.” He looked at Haeseon. “Have you ever seen a raw amethyst?” he asked. “If you crack it open and reach inside without care, it will tear your skin apart and make you bleed. It is so, so beautiful, but it can hurt you without ever meaning to.

“Jihan is like that. He’s jagged and coarse like an unrefined gem, but he’s precious all the same. And he loves you,” he said to Haeseon. A small smile graced his lips, but its joy was far outnumbered by its sorrow. “He loves you so much. It’s difficult to be near him at times, when his adoration is strongest. It simply,” he gestured with his hand, as if to shoo away something invisible, “fills the air around him and makes it hard to breathe.”

His words, sweet as they were, made the yearning in Haeseon’s chest grow until he felt as though it would suffocate him.

“Jihan chips away at his jagged edges one by one,” Yeonshin went on, his smile quick to fade, “so he could be a better man. He’s a good man already, I know it, but he wants to be better all the same. For you and for the rest of us,” his prior torment settled back in place across his face, “but never for himself. All his efforts are for the sake of others. Everything he does, whether it be something as simple as choosing a heading to sail his ship, it’s always for the sake of the rest of us. He doesn’t…”

When the surgeon’s voice grew unsteady, he paused to draw a quivering breath and reached up to rub harshly at his eyes. “Jihan doesn’t know how to love himself,” he said, every word weighed by the ache it caused him to speak it. “He doesn’t love himself, so he carves himself into whatever shape can best help the ones he cares for. He sees himself as someone beyond the point of saving. He sees a monster in himself, and he has accepted it. As long as it means he can give us the lives we lead today, he chooses to be the monster he thinks he is.”

Haeseon’s tears were cold on his cheeks. When he raised his hands to wipe them away, he pressed his hands against his eyes instead, knowing it would be an impossible thing, to stop them from spilling all over again. Jihan, he thought and wished with all his heart he could take his beloved into his arms just then. Jihan.

“You might wonder why he has never told you,” Yeonshin said, “but it’s not something he realises himself. I’ve asked him about it plenty of times. I’ve told him I would listen if he ever wanted to talk, but he always looked at me as if he truly couldn’t understand why I would say such things. It’s not—” He cut himself off before he could grow too upset, his voice having flared in his distress. “He can’t see it,” he said thickly. “He has grown so used to it.”

He was silent for a long moment, either for Haeseon’s sake or for his own. The land around them was quiet, and it bore the sound of Haeseon’s tears far, muted as he tried to keep them. There was no one to hear them, no one but Yeonshin, who knew his pain as his own.

When the surgeon eventually spoke again, he placed a hand on Haeseon’s shoulder and held him tightly. “He’s not as bad as he used to be,” he said. His voice was thick with emotion, but he was calmer now. “Not since meeting you. He loves you, Haeseon, and in loving you, he wants you to love him in return. At first, I worried he would try to change himself to be what he thinks you want him to be, but you,” the hand on his shoulder tightened further still, “you tell him you love him for who he is. You show him, over and over, that you love him in spite of his flaws. You know his flaws, and he knows you know what they are, yet you love him all the same, because those flaws are part of what makes him who he is.

“Even though it’s hard at times, and while he doesn’t understand it, not wholly, it stays his hand. It makes him hesitate in his attempts to change himself. With you, he doesn’t know how to change, so he allows himself to be who he is.”

Yeonshin pulled them to a halt and placed his other hand on Haeseon’s shoulder as well. “Right now, he’s more angry with himself than he is with you,” he said. He spoke slowly, as if he worried Haeseon would not understand him amidst his tears. “He’s angry for getting angry in the first place, and for not realising what had happened to your hearing. He’s ashamed and he blames himself, and he wonders what he should’ve done differently. He’s tiring himself out by worrying over what he did wrong, what he did to make you keep your loss of hearing a secret.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Haeseon croaked immediately. His words were barely coherent through his snivelling, but he needed Yeonshin to know. He needed Jihan to know. “There’s nothing he could’ve done. This was my choice, I—it wasn’t caused by him.” There was an unbearable pressure on his chest, one that made him want to scream. “It wasn’t his fault.”

“I know,” the surgeon said gently. “And if you spoke to him of it, if you went to him and told him how it truly is, I know he would believe you. You would make him believe you.”

Haeseon nodded fervently. “I will,” he promised through another sob. “When we return to Ísafjörður, I’ll tell him.”

“Good.” Yeonshin’s voice was calm once more as he took Haeseon by the hand and led him along their trail. “I know he’ll be waiting for you,” he said with the makings of a smile on his lips. They had fallen quite a bit behind Refur and Hisashi, but the surgeon did not hurry. He gave Haeseon all the time he needed to regain his composure, and squeezed his hand when he finally settled.

As they walked towards the third trap, Haeseon was overwhelmed by how urgently he wished to see his beloved. He had offered to walk along the patrol out of restlessness, trapped as he had felt within the town and his own tension. Now, all he wanted to do was turn around and run back to Ísafjörður so he could find Jihan and tell him, over and over until the captain believed him, that he loved him more than anything.

“Be patient,” Yeonshin told him with no small amount of fondness when he caught Haeseon glancing over his shoulder, contemplating. “He won’t go anywhere. He’s every bit as anxious to see you return as you are to go back to him.”

Refur and Hisashi were waiting for them by the third trap, having reached it several minutes prior. The swordsman clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes and complained about how slow they were, but while Yeonshin retorted with disdain, Haeseon could hardly tear his thoughts away from his beloved for long enough to care. He let Hisashi grumble to his heart’s content, and followed after Refur when he motioned for them to resume their patrol.

Jihan, he thought. Wait for me, Jihan.

When they reached the fourth trap, the blonde archer came to a halt a few paces from where the trap lay hidden. He raised his hand in a silent command for the rest of them to halt and simply stared at the contraption, a frown settling slowly over his face. “What’s wrong?” Haeseon whispered even though Refur could not understand him. He followed the archer’s gaze, but the snow around the trap lay untouched, save for the tracks left by the base of it by the patrol who had come before.

Refur stood still for several long moments, and then he strode forwards without care and plunged his hand deep into the snow. “What is he—” Yeonshin began, but his question died in his throat when the blonde archer pulled a loose strap of rope from the snow, its bell tinkling where it hung from the severed end.

Before Haeseon could so much as voice his confusion, the snow next to Refur shifted, bursting open to reveal a man dressed from head to toe in the same white robes their patrol wore. He lunged at the archer before he could pull his bow from his shoulder and sent the two of them barreling onto the ground.

The bell flew out of Refur’s hand and landed in the snow with a soft chime.

“Look out!” Yeonshin cried and pulled Haeseon against his side just as another figure rose from the snow and threw himself at Hisashi. The swordsman didn’t have enough time to draw his blade; he was thrown off balance under his assailant’s weigh, growling as he grappled with the man above him.

“They were waiting for us,” Yeonshin said loudly and reached for the pistol he had tied to his belt. His hands were clumsy with cold, but he refused to take his eyes off their surroundings, turning left and right in search of more of the cloaked men. “They must’ve found a way to disarm the trap and hide, and—”

A sickening thudding sound drowned out the rest of his words and his grip on Haeseon’s hand twitched and slackened. Haeseon turned sharply, only to have the air rush out of his lungs in a terrified gasp when he came face to face with a man two heads taller than him, a wooden club hanging from his grip. The tip of it dripped blood onto the snow, blood that seeped from the wound the weapon had placed on the back of Yeonshin’s head.

With a shrill sound, Haeseon reached up to draw his bow from around his chest, but the ground beneath his feet shifted and threw him off balance. A pair of hands gripped onto his arm with unyielding strength and pulled him back, but Haeseon lashed out before the man could take hold of his other and restrain him.

His Blessing’s claws came quickly enough, shredding through his gloves to bury deep into his assailant’s hand. The man emitted a howl of pain and let him go to cradle the bleeding limb, torn open all the way to the bone. Haeseon reached for his bow again and drew an arrow, turning to aim it at the man who had struck Yeonshin, but the other was faster; the club smashed hard into the side of his head before he could fire his arrow, and his body caved in on itself, every ounce of strength slipping from him in an instant.

Haeseon struggled against the darkness that gripped at his senses with all that he had. He fell onto his back in the snow and tried to turn his head to count their assailants, but his vision blurred faster than he was capable. They flocked along the edges of his vision, shapeless masses blocking out the light of the pale northern sky.

Amongst the men's foreign words, there was only one Haeseon knew. “Lowe,” they said, and even as Haeseon’s consciousness slipped from him and he fell deeper into the darkness, he could imagine the rest. “Bring them to Captain Lowe.”

-

me @ me: you bastard, you fucking bASTARD

JIHAE ARE NEVER GETTING LAID AT THIS POINT

but more importantLY

JIHAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNN :(((((((((((( listen you have no idea how sad i am, i've had this conversation planned since tStS chapter 5 and now it's here and it HURTS. SO MUCH. SHIT. i mean the video attached right there is what i looked like after writing the paragraph where yeonshin says “jihan doesn’t know how to love himself.” like that shet hit me sO HARD I WAS SOBBING

S O B B I N G

AND NOW HAESEON WON'T BE ABLE TO RUN INTO JIHAN'S ARMS BECAUSE THAT STUPID BITCH ELYAS HAS TO DO SOME STUPID SHIT AND RUIN EVERYTHING OH MY GOD

I HATE EVERYONE

I HATE EVERYTHING

i'm gonna go cry myself to sleep right now yes that sounds like a reasonable thing to do when everything's so mESSED UP GODDAMMIT I LOATHE THIS I JUST WANT THEM TO BE HAPPY AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH—

FUCK THE NEXT CHAPTER


	23. chapter 22 - Outside the Cage

mkay so like

just

brace yourselves

that's it

._.

Two Steps From Hell - Freedom Fighters (repeat) 

-

When Haeseon finally escaped the clutches of his unconscious state, he woke to a terrible ache in his head, a pulsing throb that had nausea rising to his throat. He groaned and refused to open his eyes, wishing he could drift back to sleep so he wouldn’t have to be in such pain.

He had nearly slipped back into the darkness when he remembered what had first put him there. With a gasp, he jerked upright, the world spinning around him with the sudden motion. The pain in his skull flared, but he merely pressed his hand against his temple to stave it off as he looked around in search of Yeonshin, of his bow, of anything.

While he realised immediately he was no longer outside, he could hardly see a thing in the room’s darkness. There was nothing to give him light, no candles nor windows, and the more he turned his head, the more flecks appeared in his vision, the ache in his head making him dizzy. He gave up with a disgruntled sound and raised his hand instead to blindly search for anything at all that could tell him where he was.

The first thing he touched was cold and hard as stone. The back of his hand collided with it and he yanked it back, a chill rushing down his back upon the familiar sensation. Slowly, he reached out again, if only to confirm what he had feared; his hand closed around the thick bar of iron, one of dozens more that made up the cage in which he’d been caught.

“Oh gods,” Haeseon whispered. He closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of his hand, the room spinning around him. “Oh gods...”

He tried to remember what had happened after they had discovered the tampered trap in the snow, but it was as difficult as attempting to catch a ray of sunlight in one’s hands. There had been an ambush, that much he knew, but his world had gone black in an instant. He couldn’t conjure the image of the man who had struck him nor where he had come from. The clearest thing he remembered was the sound of the trap’s bell, chiming softly as it was thrown onto the snow-covered ground.

A rustling noise had Haeseon startling so hard he cried out and banged his shoulder against the bars of the cage in his hurry to turn around. It came from right beside him, followed by a low groan that broke off into a whimper, and then a voice Haeseon recognised with ease, hissing out a curse of, “Fuck.”

“Yeonshin?” he asked, the surgeon’s name coming out more shrill than intended. In his chest, his heart hammered wildly, having shot up in his fright. He still couldn’t see a thing, the darkness of the room too thick for his eyes to grow accustomed to, but upon the familiar voice grunting in acknowledgement, he wanted to cry.

“Haeseon?” Yeonshin said thickly, followed by a sound like he was gagging. “Fuck, my head feels as if it’s about to split in half.”

His words brought to Haeseon’s mind a memory of seeing the surgeon lying face down in the snow with blood seeping from the back of his head. “Don’t move, Yeonshin,” he said quickly and moved closer along the floor, one hand groping along the floor until he found Yeonshin’s arm and grabbed hold of it. His own head throbbed with pain as he did, but he was certain the surgeon’s wound was far worse than his own. “Be still, please, you could make it worse.”

Yeonshin stilled for a moment before the muscles in his arm slackened as he leaned back down against the floor. “I feel anemic,” he said, his words coming out slurred. “I must’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“I don’t know where we are,” Haeseon whispered. He made another useless attempt at looking around in the dark. “I can’t see a thing. I don’t—what happened to Hisashi? And Refur?”

“I don’t know,” the surgeon said, “but I feel a body pressed up against my foot. They must be here as well.”

Haeseon moved as quickly as he could to feel along the length of Yeonshin’s body until he reached his boot. True enough, the heel of it was pressed against what felt like someone’s leg; when Haeseon grabbed it, his touch elicited a wordless grunt, and Haeseon recognised the voice as Hisashi’s.

“What about—”

His body drew itself taut upon the sound of footsteps echoing from somewhere outside of the room, the rest of his question cut off by his sharp inhale. The steps were muffled yet gaining in volume the closer they came. There were three of them at least, one carrying a chain of keys, judging by the rattling sound.

They must’ve rounded a corner, for suddenly there were lights seeping in through the cracks of the room’s only door. Haeseon looked behind himself and at Yeonshin, who was pale as a ghost, and at Hisashi, brow pinched as he struggled to rise from his state of unconscious, and Refur next to him, dead to the world with his arm angled in a terrible manner against his chest.

They were alive, the lot of them, with no certainty for how long. When the door rattled, Haeseon made himself as big as he could where he was kneeling as if he could hide the others from sight, his feathers prickling beneath his skin.

He was forced to look away when the door was swung open, the light of the lanterns all but blinding. His eyes watered and every last cell of him strung itself taut as he blinked against the harsh brightness, dreading the thought of going without sight in the face of those who had captured him. Even when the light settled enough for him to finally look at the strangers, he did not recognise any of the men who had entered the room, but then a familiar voice rose from the doorway, laced with every bit as much amusement as it had held last time Haeseon had heard it.

“Well, well, well,” Elyas Lowe said and slowly clapped his hands together in spiteful applause. He was smiling, as he always was, lips curled and carrying nothing but condescension. “What a wonderful surprise this is.”

The Western Cardinal was shorter than his men and appeared far more delicate with his blonde hair and shaven face, dressed in silks rather than leather beneath his fur-lined coat, but he towered over Haeseon all the same when he drew near to the bars of their cage. “I was disappointed to hear my men didn’t manage to bring me Sabelsdottír herself,” he said with a theatrical sigh, “but I suppose this is the next best thing. Or perhaps it is third. Choi Jihan would’ve been every bit as lovely to host, but we must make do with what we’re given.”

He placed a hand on the iron bars and leaned forward, his smile growing wider still when Haeseon shifted backwards. “The Black Fox’s little bird,” Elyas sing-songed. “He must be simply beyond himself with worry.”

Behind Haeseon, Yeonshin hissed as he attempted to push himself upright, one hand fumbling for Haeseon’s to grip it tightly. “You’ve made a mistake, Lowe,” Haeseon said, his voice far braver than he felt. “Neither Jihan nor Talya will forgive you for this.”

“Good,” the Western Cardinal said. “It’s not their forgiveness I want.” He let go of the cage in favour of moving towards its door, but paused when Haeseon recoiled. A chuckle spilled from his lips, a sound full of terrible amusement. “Are you afraid of me, Harpy?”

“Yes,” Haeseon said bluntly. He had never understood the purpose of denying that which was so obvious, nor why people thought it a thing of weakness to admit. “Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid now.”

Yeonshin clutched hard onto his hand, and he squeezed back with every bit as much strength.

Elyas threw his head back and laughed at the answer he’d been given. His men did not share in his amusement; they only looked at the captives they’d taken, as if they were about to attempt an escape even as they lay disarmed and wounded. “Right you are,” the Western Cardinal said when he sobered up, raising a sleeve of fine velvet to his face to dab at his eyes. “What a smart little bird we’ve caught.”

Haeseon despised the byname when it came from a man such as Elyas Lowe. It reminded him of Freyr. “My being afraid does not mean your fate will change,” he said. “Jihan will come for us, and when he does, it will be your time to fear.”

“It is very sweet of you to worry about me,” Elyas said, wholly unimpressed, “but you mustn’t exert yourself. Your head hurts terribly, I imagine. Colborn here,” he gestured towards the man who held the keys, tall and wide as a mountain, “doesn’t hold back much when swinging around his club.”

As if on cue, the ache in Haeseon’s skull flared. He kept his expression as unaffected as he could, but by the way the Western Cardinal smirked, the twitch in his jaw did not go unnoticed.

“As you say, the Black Fox will come. I know this,” he said. “Never mind the rest of you, he wouldn’t dream of leaving his precious little bird in my hands. The mere thought would have him on the brink of desperation.” A shudder racked his frame, as if the thought was more enticing than anything he’d ever imagined. “But he can’t see you here,” he crooned. “I could break every bone in your arms, and he wouldn’t know until it was already too late.”

Haeseon drew further back, until he was pressed tightly against Yeonshin’s side. Beneath the sleeves of his robes, feathers broke out of his skin, their growth stunted by the thick fabric he wore, and within the depths of his chest, the canary thrashed upon the terrible words. “If you touch me,” Haeseon said shrilly, “I will hurt you.”

“Hurt me,” Elyas repeated with pity in his voice. “You are an innocent one, Harpy.” When Haeseon said nothing to his mocking tone, the Western Cardinal looked around the dark room, humming as he walked over to the nearest wall and placed a hand against it. Haeseon followed his movements, shifting sideways so as to always remain kneeling between the pirate captain and those he had to protect.

“What do you think of your quarters?” Elyas asked. “I had thought to leave you in chains outside, but this suits me just as well. This is the stronghold of an old Icelandic chieftain, I believe. It’s not much of a fortress, really, merely some huts and halls clustered together to form a primitive castle.”

He turned to Haeseon with a smile. “Still, I was pleasantly surprised to find it had a room where they kept their prisoners,” he said smugly. “A dungeon, if you will. Although I must admit, to my disgrace, that I’m far kinder to my captured than they were. I’m certain you can imagine the horrible things they did here. The northerners are a brutal folk, after all.”

He looked at Refur as he spoke, the blonde archer still unconscious and cradling his broken arm. Tall and strong as he was, he looked far from brutal or savage where he lay in a miserable pile, battered and bruised after their ambush. Haeseon did not know him well, but should the Western Cardinal attempt to hurt the archer, he would fight to keep him safe as well.

Elyas parted his lips to say something more, but the man who had wielded the club interrupted him before he could begin, speaking gruff words in a foreign tongue. Upon his prompt, the Western Cardinal smiled as if every last one of his dreams had come true, his eyes all but shining when he turned to Haeseon once more. “Do forgive me, my dear guests,” he said. “I forgot for a moment why I came to see you at all.”

With a spring in his step, he moved towards the doorway. “I’ve brought someone to see you,” he gushed with manic glee as he gave way for those he had summoned. “She is very eager, so do give her your most humble welcome.”

“Fuck,” Yeonshin croaked, his voice breathless and taut with fear. His grip was bruisingly tight as he sat up and pulled Haeseon against his side, scrambling backwards over the floor to get as far away from the newcomers as possible, until they were pressed up against the iron bars of their cage. “Oh gods, fuck, you—”

The rest of his words wouldn’t come, lost in his dread as he was, for in the doorway stood the goddess of death, a terrible smile playing at her lip.

Haeseon couldn’t breathe. Before his eyes he saw a pirate of Talya’s crew charging at the woman who smelled like death, only to have his life ripped from him by nothing but a mere touch of her hand. The same woman stood before him now, flanked by a man cloaked all in black, and Haeseon couldn’t breathe. All he could do was hold onto Yeonshin as if he was his only saving grace, the iron bars digging hard into his shoulder.

Whatever fear he had felt in the presence of Elyas Lowe paled in comparison to the horror that tore up his chest when Hel stepped into the room, eyes moving slowly over each of the prisoners. She drank in the sight of them with clear content, pleased to see her mere presence give birth to such cloying dread. When her gaze fell on Haeseon, her smile grew wider still in recognition and froze the blood in his veins.

“You must forgive my new friend, for she does not speak your tongue,” Elyas said, beyond himself with glee at the sight of their terror. “Fret not, I will turn her words for you and yours for her, so no one will be lost in this lovely conversation.” He turned to the goddess of death and told her the same in strange words, whatever language the two of them shared. She nodded without taking her eyes off Haeseon and replied in kind, her voice clear and sharp, commanding.

The Western Cardinal looked at Haeseon as well, spite twisting the smile on his lips as he addressed his men. “Fetch the little bird,” he said.

The air in Haeseon’s lungs turned to ice, every cell of him screaming in dread when the pirate with the keys moved to obey. “Don’t you lay a hand on him!” Yeonshin shouted and attempted to pull Haeseon in behind himself, his movements frantic and desperate. Every syllable that spilled past his lips was laced with fear. “Stay back, you hear me?!”

The man did not stop, not when Refur, who had woken in the commotion, grabbed hold of the hem of his trousers in attempt to hold him back. With the archer’s broken arm, he was easily pushed aside; the pirate aimed a harsh kick against his shattered bone, tearing a horrible cry from Refur’s lips. He did not stop when Hisashi rose to his feet and blocked his way, shoving him back with as much strength as he could muster. The man took hold of his arm and rammed his fist into Hisashi’s gut, and threw him to the floor when he crumpled in pain.

He did not stop when Yeonshin spread his arms wide as if they were a shield behind which he could keep Haeseon safe. “Don’t touch him,” the surgeon hissed. “Don’t you fucking touch him!” His voice was trembling, as was the rest of him, but he did not balk, even when the man raised his hand and swung it against his face.

“Yeonshin!” Haeseon cried as the surgeon crashed against the floor, the sheer force of the pirate’s strike tearing the air from his lungs. “Yeon—” The rest of his words were lost in a quivering sound when the man stepped before him, towering tall as a mountain as he stared down at him. “Do-don’t,” Haeseon pleaded and clutched onto the iron bars of his cage, his voice thinner than a whisper. “Don’t, please.”

The man did not heed his begging. He reached down and took hold of the scruff of Haeseon’s robes, and all it took was one sharp tug for Haeseon’s grip on the bars to slip. Fear seized every cell of him, crippling, until all he knew to do was scream. “Yeonshin!” he shouted, panic tearing at his chest, at his mind. “Help me, Yeonshin, help—stop, stop, I can’t die, you can’t, please! I have to back, you can’t, I—”

He was thrown to the floor in front of the cage, the rest of his pleas lost in a cry of pain as his head cracked against the hard wood. Through the roar of blood in his ears, he heard the iron bars slam shut, locking him out of the only safety he’d still retained. He couldn’t look, he refused to look at the woman who stood before him. The whole of him quivered with terror, and he scrambled back towards the cage, reaching for the bars and clutching them with all his might.

In his chest, the canary shrieked in dread, a sound so shrill it might’ve deafened him from within.

“Haeseon!” Hands clamped down tightly on top of his own, as if they held the power to pull him through the iron rods. “Haeseon!” Yeonshin shouted, Haeseon’s dread mirrored on his face.

“I can’t die, Yeonshin,” Haeseon wheezed. The air in his lungs wouldn’t flow right, as if ice had grown within his chest and rendered it useless. “I have to back, I have to see him, I can’t—”

He heard a rustle of fabric behind him at the same time as the surgeon’s grip on his hands tightened. Suddenly, it was as if he couldn’t see or hear, as if the whole of the world has vanished from around him. Every one of his senses came to a halt all at once and left him with nothing but his crippling terror.

“Don’t look,” Yeonshin said loudly and tugged at the sleeves of Haeseon’s garb. Their faces were mere inches apart, but to Haeseon’s ears, he might as well have been standing a dozen miles away. “Haeseon, just look at me! Don’t turn around, keep your eyes—”

The goddess of death spoke with a calm voice, and Haeseon heard it as if the foreign words had come from his own mind. He did not dare breathe when he turned around, tears spilling down his cheeks as he raised his head to look up at Hel.

She was smiling even now. With Haeseon’s life resting in the palm of her hand, she was smiling.

“Please,” he whispered with the last of his breath. “Please don’t touch me.”

As he had promised, Elyas turned his for the goddess of death to understand with all the mirth of a madman, elated as he was by Haeseon’s state of terror. She listened without looking away and smiled when he was done, sinking into a crouch so they would be of equal height. “Have you always been so frightened of death, boy?” Hel asked through the Western Cardinal with a curious lilt to her voice. “Or is it the sight of my image that makes you tremble?”

Haeseon couldn’t have answered even if he’d wanted to. Fear consumed him from the inside out, ripping piece by piece from his sanity. “Please,” was all he could say. “Please.”

A sigh spilled past Hel’s lips as she looked him over. The smile on her lips faded when she frowned, as if Haeseon’s behaviour made her concerned. “You were not like this when we first met,” she said. “You smiled at me and spoke with kindness. Do I no longer deserve that kindness, now that you know who I am?”

It was not sensibility what gave Haeseon back his voice, shrill with fear as it was. “You’re the reason people die,” he breathed out. He did not dare to blink, lest she end his life while his eyes were shut to the world.

“Everything dies,” Hel said. When she gestured around the room with her hand, Haeseon flinched back against the bars of the cage, his knuckles white with how tightly he held onto them. “Everything, everywhere. Death is nature. Is nature wrong?”

Haeseon could hardly see through his tears, but the longer he stared at her face, the clearer her likeness to Talya became. Hel had the same eyes and mouth as his friend, and it drove him mad to see. He hated the goddess of death for it; perhaps it was why he refused her an answer, only pressing his lips together to keep from saying anything more.

Upon his silence, the goddess of death sighed, but not out of ire. “You are a precious one,” she said. For a long moment, she only looked at him, as if she was attempting to find some secret hidden beneath the lenses of his eyes. When she found none, she hummed in thought, and raised her hand towards his face.

Haeseon reared back as if she had struck him, a cry of terror spilling from his lips. “No, no, do-don’t touch me, please!” he screamed and turned away, legs kicking feebly against the floor in his attempts to find footing and push himself through the iron bars. Inside the cage, Yeonshin reached for him in desperation, pressing his front against the hard poles to close his arms around Haeseon’s chest and pull him as close as he could go. “Get away from me, get away, get away from me!”

His voice lost its humanity at the same time as feathers burst from his skin, his Blessing rising to meet his terror. They tore through the fabric of his robes, so quickly it felt as if his skin would break apart. Down the length of his spine they grew, until he had taken the harpy’s shape without intending to, his mind lost to that of the canary.

As quickly as they had come, his feathers ceased their growth when a hand took hold of his wing and squeezed tightly. In an instant, the whole of him went still against his own desire; no matter how he struggled to move, his body would not hear it. In his chest, his Blessing thrashed and shrieked, but all it could accomplish was a string of high-pitched cries to spill from Haeseon’s lips.

It was not Hel who had touched him, but Elyas Lowe. Through the grip he had on Haeseon’s arm, the Western Cardinal’s Blessing’s restraint forced itself into his body and stilled him against his will. His mind begged him to escape, to get as far away from the goddess of death as he possibly could, but his body was deaf to his inner pleas.

One by one, the feathers of Haeseon’s Blessing began to retreat, and it felt like he had already died.

“Stop it!” Yeonshin screamed, his arms wound tight around Haeseon’s body. He reached for Elyas’ hand where it held onto Haeseon to pry it away, but before he could form a proper grip, the pirate inside the cage took a fistful of the surgeon’s hair and pulled him back. His arms slipped from around Haeseon’s chest as he was dragged away, kicking and flailing to free himself. “Haeseon!”

“Be careful now, doctor, or she might touch you instead,” the Western Cardinal said, smiling.

“Fuck you, Lowe!” Yeonshin spat, only to be silenced by the man who restrained him, a hand pressed hard over his mouth to muffle his cries.

Haeseon was alone before the goddess of death now. “Don’t,” he begged of her, unable to turn away. He thought of Jihan and of Seunggi and all the others, and the tears that fell from his eyes without pause were for them and the pain he would cause them should he fall to her touch. “Don’t, please.”

Hel only smiled and took hold of the tatters still remaining around his shoulders to pull them off his frame. They fell easily, torn as they had been by his feathers’ growth. The northern chill seeped into his skin, but under the control of Elyas’ Blessing, Haeseon couldn’t even shudder.

In silence, the goddess of death studied the scars spreading across his shoulder and chest, her eyes tracing the forked, twisting pattern they drew across his skin. She said nothing for a long while, only observing, until there was nothing more for her eyes to see and she pressed her fingers against Haeseon’s chest.

A sharp sound burst from his lips upon the contact, but the pain never came. There was no sensation of death, no ache, only Hel’s touch, every bit as human as the Western Cardinal’s. In Elyas’ control, Haeseon barely breathed, his muscles taut beneath the palm of her hand as she followed the patterns of his scars, following every last one of them.

It felt as if an eternity had time to pass before the goddess of death finally reached the marks highest on his neck. She followed them all the way until she was cupping his jaw, her gaze rising to meet his terrified one. “Why has she chosen you?” she asked through Elyas. “What is so special about you?”

When Haeseon gave no reply, she looked up at the Western Cardinal, who shrugged his shoulders and let him go. As soon as his Blessing’s grip on him faded, Haeseon exhaled sharply as if he had run a mile without pause, his chest heaving with his laboured breath. He scrambled back, his hands returning to clutch onto the cage bars, as if they were the only thing left to grant him his sanity.

“Do you hear it as well?” Hel pressed. “Is that why she keeps you so close?”

“I do—I don’t know wh-what you’re talking about,” Haeseon wheezed, his voice high as a whistle. His mind was reeling, wholly unable to grasp what was happening around him. “Don’t—don’t touch me.”

The goddess of death chuckled, as if it was an amusing plea. “Did you believe the touch of death lies outside of my control?” she asked and waved her hand around, smirking when Haeseon jerked in fright. “Innocent boy. I decide who lives and who dies. My hand will not kill unless I so wish it.”

Haeseon parted his lips to answer the prompt she had laid for him, but all that left him was a quivering breath. His senses were lost to him now, claimed by the fit of panic that had dug its claws deep into him, tearing, ravaging.

Upon his silence, Hel heaved a sigh, her smile slipping from her lips. “Sabelsdottír cannot run forever,” she said, the first signs of ire marring her brow. “A debt is due for the crimes of her past, and I have come to this realm to collect it. For every day that passes without her accepting the fate she has brought upon herself, more people will be sent to the halls of the dead, where I will keep them until the days of Ragnarök.” She stood upright and looked down at Haeseon, her gaze now cold as ice. “Perhaps she will soon learn to see the truth,” she said. “Even if I must force her to do so.”

She turned to Elyas and spoke what could only have been a command, one he was quick to obey with a wide smile and an over-exaggerated bow. “Pardon me, honoured guests,” he said and gestured towards the door, “but I must go to see our Lady Death off for her departure. When I return, I shall invite the lot of you for dinner, so that we may rejoice the wake of this lovely encounter.” He halted in the doorway and looked to his crewman. “Let the little bird back into his cage,” he said. “I’m certain he misses it.”

The man did as told. He opened the cage from within and grabbed hold of Haeseon’s arm to drag him back inside, tossing him to the floor with little finesse. On his way out, he locked the cell once more, throwing one last threatening look at the four of them before he followed after his captain.

The door slammed shut, and the goddess of death was gone.

Once submerged in darkness once more, Yeonshin scrambled over to Haeseon’s side and pulled him firmly against his chest at the very same time as the first sob broke past his lips. “She touched me, Yeonshin,” Haeseon cried, trembling like a leaf in a storm in his distress. “Sh-she touched me.”

“It’s alright now, Haeseon,” the surgeon told him in a brave attempt at keeping his own voice level for Haeseon to draw comfort from. He was every bit as shaken as Haeseon was, however, his hands shaking where they stroked through his hair. “Breathe for me. You’re alright. You’re alive, you’re here.”

Haeseon struggled to do as told, his throat closed tightly in his lingering fear. He closed his eyes against Yeonshin’s chest and drew in as much of his familiar scent as he could, clinging to it to stave off thoughts of what of Hel’s visit and instead make him think of the August’s crew.

He did not know for how long he had stayed like that when Hisashi rose to his feet somewhere to their side. “We have to get the fuck out of here.” The swordsman moved along the iron bars until he found the massive lock hanging from one of it. He shook the door to the cage, but it did not budge, only rattling in its hinges. “Nevermind that crazy bitch,” he said harshly, “Lowe will hang our bodies from the roof to bait our captain into doing something stupid.”

“Yes,” Yeonshin agreed and nodded, still stroking Haeseon’s temples. “But how? They took our weapons. Refur’s arm is broken, and it’s only the four of us against—I don’t know how many of them there are, but I can only assume it’s the whole of Lowe’s crew.”

Hisashi looked around as if expecting to find the answer somewhere in the darkness of the room. “Fuck,” he spat when he found none and rammed his fist against the bars, rattling them once more. “We can’t escape from this room, even if we’d get the cage open. We can’t break down that door with only our hands.”

Yeonshin said something in reply, but his words were lost to Haeseon’s ears. In the wake of his fit of panic, his Blessing rose high to the surface of his consciousness and claimed him, pulling his mind into itself until he could no longer make sense of his own thoughts. We live, a small voice said, echoing throughout his body. We live. We will live.

It was a pleasant thing to imagine, and Haeseon clung to it even though part of him knew it was foolish. Hel might’ve left them for now, but they were no safer than they had been ever since the ambush outside of Ísafjörður. Death was still a threat without its goddess there to deliver it.

We will live, he said to himself and struggled to make himself believe it. The alternative was too dreadful a thought to bear. Until Jihan comes for us, all of us will live. Within the depths of his chest, the canary crooned its agreement, yet Haeseon could not help but waver and repeat what he had thought a hundred times over, desperate even amidst his own delusion.

Please.

-

FUCK.

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK THIS CHAPTER IS THE MOST SUFFOCATING THING I’VE EVER WRITTEN, HOLY FUCK IT FREAKED ME OUT OH MY GOD.

I WAS YELLING THROUGHOUT WRITING THIS. I'M STILL YELLING. I CAN 'T

ALSO.

ALSO I CRIED AGAIN. WHEN YEONSHIN TRIED TO STOP THE PIRATE FROM DRAGGING HAESEON OUT OF THE CAGE, WHEN HE RAISED HIS ARMS TO SHIELD HAESEON AND TOLD THE GUY NOT TO TOUCH HIM. I CRIED. AGAIN. YUP. THAT HAPPENED.

hoooooooooly fUCK okay this chapter seriously had me all kinds of messed up, like when elyas grabbed hold of haeseon and stopped him from moving when hel was rIGHT THERE ABOUT TO TOUCH HIM sjhdjsdhsdkjsd i had to stop writing for a second and just bREATHE OKAY THAT WAS SO??? UPSETTING??????

goddayum

mKAY SO LIKE YEAH THINGS SURE ARE LOOKING GREAT WOOHOO I BET THINGS ARE GONNA GET MUCH BETTER NEXT TIME YUP IT'S ALL SUNSHINE AND FLOWERS FROM HEREON OUT

/joins haeseon in his happy delusions

yay.


	24. chapter 23 - By a Touch

good luck.

that is all.

Brand X Music - Altered States (again and again and again and again) 

-

When Elyas Lowe had spoken of hosting his captives for dinner, Haeseon hadn’t imagined he had meant it. He’d thought the Western Cardinal was only being spiteful, mocking them for their imprisonment, but later that same day Colborn came to fetch them from their cage and bring them to a grand hall amidst the fortress. A long table had been dragged to the middle of the room and loaded with plates of potatoes and meat and stew with fish, and candles to light up the feast.

Sure enough, it was a proper dinner, all but a feast, and Haeseon’s stomach turned at the sight of it.

“Come, honoured guests,” Elyas said and beckoned them to the table. In his hand he held a clear glass of wine, red as blood. “The little bird should have the seat of honour opposite of me, don’t you think? The good doctor can sit closer to me, and the two others opposite of him.”

He guided them to their seats with his hand much like a conductor might lead an orchestra of instruments, with Colborn to push them towards the table when they did not immediately move. Behind Haeseon, Hisashi spat out a string of curses in the tongue of his homeland, but there was little he could do to resist the pirate that stood tall as a mountain.

They were not chained, but even so, there was little chance to escape; while Elyas sat alone at the head of the table, unarmed and casual, his men guarded each of the four doorways leading out. Perhaps Haeseon could’ve escaped on his own if he took his Blessing’s true form, but never in his lifetime would he leave the others behind for the sake of sparing himself.

“I wasn’t certain what food you enjoy,” the Western Cardinal said once they’d been seated. “Iceland is known for their fishery above all else, but I made sure to prepare something heartier as well.” He gestured to a roast topped with garlic and herbs. It looked delectable and smelled so too, but all Haeseon could see was the knife left buried in the meat, sharp and gleaming in the light of the candles.

Had they been friends rather than enemies, his laid-back behaviour might’ve been the norm, but as it was, the Western Cardinal’s glee seemed manic, bordering on insanity. Haeseon stared at him, incapable of forming any response to his easy words, wholly unaware of what it was Elyas was expecting of them.

Upon their silence, the Western Cardinal snorted into his glass of wine. “‘Tis not human flesh, if that is what worries you,” he said in jest. “It’s sheep, brought here from a farm not far away from this fortress. A pirate as though I may be, I’m no savage.”

It was not what Haeseon had hesitated for, but once Elyas had spoken the words, the nausea in his stomach churned and rose higher, until he had to swallow hard against a convulsion in his throat. Yeonshin mirrored his revulsion, eyes fixed on the wall and lips pressed tightly together.

“Will you not eat?” Elyas asked, as if he was truly surprised when none of them reached for the food. “But you must be starving. I haven’t fed you since you were captured outside of Ísafjörður, and that was more than a day ago.”

None of them spoke in reply. While Hisashi hardly shared in Haeseon and Yeonshin’s nausea, all he did was stare at the Western Cardinal with murder in his eyes. At his side, Refur slumped in his seat, pale and sickly as he cradled his broken arm.

In spite of their silent protests, all Elyas did was shrug his shoulders and sigh, as if there was nothing in his power to lighten the atmosphere. “Do as you wish,” he said and raised his plate to scoop a few potatoes onto it. “I suppose I can’t force you to eat. Well,” he paused, “I could, but that might ruin the fun we’re having.”

A shudder tore up Haeseon’s spine, his skin crawling with the memory of being under the Cardinal’s Blessing’s control. He hid it as best he could, grabbing onto his own arm and squeezing it hard beneath the table.

For all his merriment, Elyas grew bored with their silence quickly enough. After his second plate of salted fish and boiled greens, he leaned back in his seat with a frown marring his brow. “How dull you are,” he bemoaned and took a long drink of his wine. “This is a rare chance for you, you know. You could ask me anything. Anything at all you’ve ever wondered about me. I’m in a generous mood this evening, so I will tell you whatever you wish to know.”

Haeseon knew it was a lure of sorts. Neither Yeonshin nor Hisashi said a word in reply—they did not even look at the Western Cardinal—but he couldn’t bear the pressure in the air any longer. He did not know what Elyas would do to them if they refused to entertain him, so he asked the first question that rose to his mind. “Why do you despise Ji—our captain so much?”

A muffled clatter followed his words; the surgeon’s leg had jerked and hit one of the table’s supports. He didn’t turn Haeseon’s way, but his face grew stiff with nervousness.

If Elyas noticed his reaction, he did not comment on it. Instead he emitted a snort of amusement. “As expected,” he said. “The Black Fox’s little bird wishes to defend his captain’s honour and prove my hatred irrational.” He chuckled, although the sound bore far less glee than before. “Tell me, Harpy, have you ever tasted humiliation? Not the child’s play you engaged in with our lovely Lady Death, but proper, true humiliation?”

He took another sip of wine and went on without waiting for a reply. “I don’t imagine you have,” he said, “but many who sail alongside you might’ve. They are all pirates in a very different manner than you, after all. For example, your Hand of Midas should know what I speak of well enough.”

The mention of Kyujang had Haeseon growing stiff; the grip he had on himself tightened, his nails digging into his skin.

“I know it all,” the Western Cardinal said. “I’ve made it my task to know what I can about the Black Fox’s crew. Your sailing master was pushed deep into the dirt by those who thought themselves his masters, and oh, there were so many of them. One after the other, they came in droves. Dozens, perhaps even a hundred, and not a single one of them likely thought the boy human. He was an object, and they treated him as such.” In his hand, he turned the glass of wine in slow circles, watching the red liquid slosh along its movement. “Does an object require hygiene? Or clothes to save his dignity? What of kindness?”

This time, he waited for an answer, but was greeted by silence once more. Haeseon knew what he spoke of, Seunggi had told him, but from Elyas’ lips, with a voice laced in spite, it sounded ten times worse.

“No,” Elyas said simply when none of them said a word. “No, an object does not require such things. You wouldn’t grant a mirror or a satchel the same dignity as you would a human being.” He sighed. “Can you fathom the humiliation he suffered every day after he found his Blessing? We humans are made to be loved. By our fellow men and women, and by ourselves. We are creatures fragile enough to be hurt by mere words. Harsh words take from us what we as humans hunger for so dearly.”

He raised his hand to count on his fingers. “Affection, love, kinship, belonging, respect. A slave has none of these, and a slave is what he was. Slavery instills in you a terrible ache in the depths of you mind, and when pain of the body is added to it, the human soul,” he snapped his fingers, the sound loud in the silence of the room, “cracks and breaks apart. Thoughts of life become insignificant. We no longer strive to become anything. All there is is a miserable existence to which we do not feel like we belong.”

Part of Haeseon wanted to tell him to stop speaking, to be quiet and let the answer to his question die. He did not want to hear of Kyujang’s past from a man such as Elyas Lowe, but even so, he held his tongue, fearing what would happen to them should he protest now.

The Western Cardinal leaned forward in his seat, eyes placed on Haeseon. “I ask you again,” he said, “can you fathom the humiliation of being broken by your fellow men? Can you imagine the thoughts that must go through the head of someone who is reduced to a lesser creature than those he considered his kin?” He raised his voice in pitch until he was speaking like a child. “Why was I made wrong? What makes me worth less than them? What is wrong with me? Am I not the same? Am I not human?”

With a dry snort, he reached for the canister of wine and filled his glass anew, humming to himself when he took a large swallow of it. “If you gave the Hand of Midas the chance to stand on equal grounds with those who claimed to own him, would he not do it?” he asked. “Would he not take sword in hand and give them back the pain they cause him for all the years they spent owning him?”

Haeseon’s stomach was roiling with nausea. Even though he knew what the answer was, he did not voice it. Half of him feared he would vomit if he parted his lips now, while the other despised the thought of giving a man such as Elyas Lowe the satisfaction of being correct.

“Denying it would be a lie,” the pirate captain said with a wry smile, as if he had heard Haeseon’s thoughts, “and you’ve spoken the truth so far, little bird. You know what I say is true, so you hold your tongue. How wise.” He raised his glass in salute and drank, smacking his lips in content when he was done. “Then there is you,” he said and turned in his seat until he faced Yeonshin. “You know very well what I speak of.”

The surgeon was pale as a sheet. His hands gripped harshly onto the armrests of his his chair, his knuckles white with the force of it, and he stared down into his untouched plate, as if he wished with all his might he could drown himself in it.

“The good doctor,” Elyas said, beyond himself with mirth. “You know the humiliation of a slave as well, albeit in a different manner. Your chains were not made of iron, but silken garb of the finest make, and jewellery to go with it.”

“Don’t,” Yeonshin said hoarsely, barely louder than a whisper. “Don’t speak of it.”

Laughter spilled from the Western Cardinal’s lips, tinged with the spirits of his drink. “Come now, we’re sharing stories,” he cajoled. “Don’t spoil our merriment, doctor.” It was sickening, the cheerful tone with which he spoke. “How many men and women did you slaughter in your king’s name before you fled to the sea? That is the proper word for it, isn’t it? Slaughter.”

Yeonshin’s lips parted and closed around nothing, not even his breath. “The King of Joseon might’ve dressed it in fancy terms of medicine for the sake of saving his beloved wife,” Elyas said, “but who was he to pass judgement on the worth of human life? Who was he to force you to do his bidding, as if he, by the crown he wore, owned both you and the people you carved open?”

“I wasn’t—”

“Did you not hate the king for it?” Whatever meek protest the surgeon had thought to speak, Elyas spoke over him without granting him the chance. “Did you not want to kill him?” he asked, growing louder every time he took a fresh sip of his wine. “Did the mere thought of him drawing breath not fill you with repulsion so crippling it was all you could think of in your darkest hours, to shove a knife into his abdomen rather than the innocents that were strapped down in your surgery?”

Yeonshin’s hand trembled when he lifted it to his mouth and pressed down. Truly, his nausea might’ve risen to his lips and spilled onto the table, but the Western Cardinal pushed on without mercy.

“Your king made you inhuman,” he crowed. “To the best of his efforts, at the very least. I can imagine you begged him to cease his madness, but did he listen? Did he heed your pleas? Or did he do as the Hand of Midas’ masters did and refuse you the kindness one would show a fellow human?” He snorted, as if the question itself was ridiculous. “You were an object to him,” he said, “regardless of the crest sewn into your garb or the crown upon your head. He humiliated you, and so you ran into the arms of those who could give you what every man and woman desires most.”

In the wake of his words, no one dared draw breath. Yeonshin appeared moments from passing out, trembling with the tautness of his muscles. Elyas was looking at the surgeon like a cat might look at a rat it had just killed, smug and spiteful and pleased beyond compare. He took such joy in gazing upon the effect of his words, and Haeseon despised him with all his might.

“Why do you speak of this?” he asked shrilly. “Why—what does Kyujang or Yeonshin have to do with your hatred for Jihan?”

“Because I want them to understand,” the Western Cardinal said with a shrug, as if it was an obvious thing. “They should understand. My hatred for the Black Fox is the same the good doctor here bears for the man who was his king. It is the same the Hand of Midas bears for his old masters.” The smile on his lips had grown hard as stone, yet he did not cease his tale. “I was like him, once. I was a slave of my fellow men. I, too, lived as an object for those who thought themselves my superiors. I, too, was broken apart, and I can assure you, little bird, the only thing that kept me from losing myself was the vengeance I desired, vengeance for the humiliation my owners had put me through.”

He braced his hands flat against the table and leaned forward to sneer at Haeseon, the jewels hanging from his ears clattering. “You don’t know what it is like,” he said. “You come from a simple life, Yun Haeseon. You don’t know how it consumes you. It’s insanity, in a way. It,” he smacked a hand against his chest, fingers digging into the silken garb, “it’s a fire, burning you from within. It eats at you, it festers your insides until the day you finally manage to rise from it. Until you finally manage to stand on equal grounds with those who thought themselves superior. Until you have the strength to give back the years of humiliation they caused you.

“After you’ve risen, you’re strong in a way no other human is, but that strength itself is fragile. When it has taken you years upon years to finally be seen as human, as an equal, a slight to that feat can bring back all the horrible thoughts you had when you were regarded as nothing. Treated as nothing.”

The words left the Western Cardinal through gritted teeth. Along his neck, his muscles were pulled taut, and he drew a deep breath to regain his composure, slumping back in his seat. “That is what your beloved captain did to me,” he said when he was calm once more. The smile on his lips did not quite meet his eyes, but then again, it had never been truly genuine. “Surely, to you, it meant nothing. To you, it was a small insult. The refusal to take the hand I extended to him and shake it, how fragile must I have been to take such offense from it?”

He reached for his glass of wine as if he had forgotten it and drank the rest of its contents in one go. “You tell no lies, little bird,” he said when he was done, “so I will not either. I am fragile. I’ve fought tooth and nail to become a man worthy of the respect of my fellow men, and when Choi Jihan denied me that respect, I saw in him the same things I saw every day in those who called themselves my masters. Contempt, disdain, arrogance, superiority.”

He chuckled, the sound slurred by the wine’s strength, and raised his empty glass in cheers. “In spite of my fragility, I’ve been given the title of Cardinal,” he said. An ugly redness spread across his cheeks; whether it was from the drink or his anger or his glee, Haeseon could not tell. “I’ve become a man respected and feared by pirates, sailors, and the good innocents alike. All that I’ve accomplished, I’ve done it by my own strength, and should any other question it, be it your Black Fox or Talya Sabelsdottír, I will repay them a hundred times over.”

Without much care, he tossed the glass to the floor, unflinching when it shattered. “They will know my humiliation,” he drawled, his words quiet and slurring together. “I’ll make sure they do.”

A nervous silence followed his words, one that wasn’t limited only to those of August’s crew and Refur. Elyas’ own men fidgeted where they stood, glancing their captain’s way and speaking in hushed, anxious words amongst one another. Their tension made Haeseon’s own flare; last time he had seen pirates so afraid of their own captain, that very captain had turned on his own crewman and burned his arm black.

For a moment, he wondered if Elyas had fallen asleep in his seat, but he sat upright once more before long, the spiteful smile returning to his lips as he looked at Haeseon again. “You don’t understand,” he said. There was something twisted about his grin now, one far more ominous than any of his prior. “I can see it. And I suppose I can’t blame you for it. Having lived a sheltered life is no fault of your own. You have come close once, however.”

Upon Haeseon’s bewilderment, the Western Cardinal laughed, his head thrown back as he cackled. “At my hand, no less,” he said, as if he was proud. “If things had gone my way, you would know just what I mean, but alas…”

“What are you talking about?” Haeseon asked stiffly, remembering far too late his resolution to never ask a question whose answer he did not what to know.

“Surely, you remember it,” Elyas said and waved an impatient hand. “It was not so long ago. You would know the humiliation I speak of, had Choi Jihan not slain the three men I paid to corner you in the alleys of Shanghai after the Meeting of the Cardinals.”

It was as if the room had been submerged in icy water, a chill seeping into Haeseon’s skin and gripping at his lungs. His breath froze in his chest and his stomach turned. “You,” he began, but whatever words he had intended to speak, they did not rise to his lips. He remembered the pirates well. He remembered their foul touches and the words they had said, how they had lingered long after Jihan had come for him, long after he had scrubbed his skin until it was raw. “What?”

“It wasn’t a person affair, not against you,” the Western Cardinal said with the tone of someone speaking of the weather. “I grew curious after the Black Fox’s display amidst the meeting, when he so valiantly rose to defend your honour from Jalen Kayote’s insults.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I wanted to know what he would do should the little bird be stripped of his dignity in the same manner the Southern Cardinal had implied.”

An ache unlike any Haeseon had ever felt settled heavily in his chest, as if he was being crushed from all sides. He felt cold as ice yet simultaneously filled with white-hot flames. In the back of his throat, he tasted bile, and the grip he’d had on his arm turned into a vice, his nails gouging scores of red into his skin.

Jihan, he thought, if only for the sake of his sanity. Jihan.

He startled when a chair scraped against the floor, jerking around in his seat to look at Yeonshin, who had risen from his own, uncaring of the men standing by the doors. The surgeon was pale as a ghost, his hand quivering when he raised it to point at Elyas. “You,” he said, his voice trembling as well. “You paid three pirates to drag him into an alley, and—” a convulsion passed his throat, as if the words were too foul to speak, “and rape him, because you wanted to see how our captain would react.”

The Western Cardinal raised a hand in a silent command for his men to remain where they stood. “Yes,” he said, nodding.

“You would’ve gladly done to him what was done to you out of nothing but curiosity,” Yeonshin said. “Just—just for the chance of seeing Choi Jihan angry or hurt by it.”

“Yes,” Elyas said again, the smile never leaving his lips.

Get out, Haeseon shouted inwardly, desperate. His nails dug deeper, as if the Cardinal’s words, his actions, were alive beneath his skin. Get out, get out, get out!

“You fucking—” The table’s plates and candlesticks clattered loudly when Yeonshin slammed his hands down on the table, his voice building alongside his rage. “I don’t give a fuck about what humiliation you’ve faced at the hands of others!” he said and turned towards Elyas so sharply he knocked over his chair. “I don’t care what Jihan’s words reminded you of! You’re a sickness! You disgust me, you’re abhorrent! You would’ve destroyed Haeseon, you would’ve broken him, you would’ve—”

The rest of his words were lost in his outrage, breaking off into a sound like a feral growl. With no regard for the others in the room, he reached for the knife buried in the roast of lamb and tore it free, and lunged for the Western Cardinal, swinging the blade with all his might.

“Yeonshin, don’t!” Haeseon cried, but slowed as he was by his own state of petrification, his warning came too late. With one hand, Elyas blocked Yeonshin’s strike, and with the other, he grabbed hold onto the surgeon’s wrist, yanking the sleeve of his robes back so he could directly touch his skin.

In an instant, Yeonshin leaned back, bending away from the Western Cardinal with an outdrawn snarl of restraint, his body moving against his will. “Let go of me!” he shouted, his muscles straining with his futile attempts to move. His eyes and lips were all that moved, the rest left wholly to Elyas’ Blessing’s control. “Let—I will kill you!”

“That is not a very tempting offer, is it?” the pirate captain asked. He rose from his seat, his movements easy while Yeonshin’s were harsh and stiff with tension. “It does amaze me, how fiercely the lot of you wish to protect the little bird. Is it loyalty to your captain what inspires such care? Or is he truly as special as every cursed soul seems to think?”

“You would never understand!” the surgeon spat. Even though he knew it was a futile thing, to fight against Elyas’ Blessing’s command, he did not yield. Blood rushed to his face in exertion and his temples grew damp with sweat, but his body did not move.

“You’re likely right,” the Western Cardinal said and gave a thoughtful nod. For a moment, he watched Yeonshin struggle with mild amusement, and then, as if he’d had the grandest of ideas, he turned to Haeseon, his lips spreading into a wide smile. “Tell me, doctor,” he said, manic with glee, “if the Black Fox would’ve reacted in anger had the men I paid seen their task through, what, oh what would he do if his beloved songbird was to lose his life at the hand of his own surgeon?”

Whatever air still lingered in Haeseon’s lungs left him in a quivering exhale at the same time as all the fight went out of Yeonshin, his eyes growing wide with terror. “No,” he said. His voice had never been so weak. “No, don’t, you can’t—”

“I can,” Elyas said and moved to grab hold of the surgeon’s neck so the grip he had on the knife would be free. Without a word or a strain of effort, he made Yeonshin turn around until he faced Haeseon. “I can so easily.”

The surgeon took a step and then another, until he was walking without pause, crossing the length of the table at the pace the Western Cardinal set for him. “Let me go!” he screamed, pleading. Fuck, let me—Haeseon, run! Get away from me, get away!”

In his shock, Haeseon’s movements were rendered slow and clumsy. He rose from his seat, stumbling as he did and knocking it over. “Yeo-Yeonshin,” he said thinly. His legs wouldn’t move right, catching on the legs of the chair and causing him to stagger. It was as if he was trapped in a terrible dream, a nightmare that couldn’t possibly be true. “Yeonshin—”

“Please!” Tears spilled from the surgeon’s eyes, streaming down his cheeks as he held up the knife in his grip. His plea might’ve been for either Haeseon or Elyas, or even for himself. Whoever it was, it did not matter; the Western Cardinal did not budge, and Haeseon was powerless to heed it. “Oh gods, please, I can’t do this, I can’t!”

He came to a halt in front of Haeseon, barely an arm’s reach away, and Haeseon, unmoving, watched him raise his hand high over his head. He saw it as if he had left his body, as if he was a stranger standing at the edge of the room. Yeonshin wouldn’t hurt him, he knew it. It was all his mind could conjure, the certainty that Yeonshin would never hurt him.

“Yeonshin,” he whispered when the knife began its descent. In his chest, the canary thrashed in desperation, crying out in rhythm to the distant sound of a heartbeat. “Yeonshin—”

He didn’t hear the clatter of the chair to his side, nor did he catch the movement from the corner of his eye. All of a sudden, Haeseon was falling to the floor, and Hisashi stood in his place, rigid as a statue as the blade sank deep into his chest.

“NO!” The scream that burst from Yeonshin’s lips was terrible, breaking apart as he clung to the hilt of the knife, Elyas’ Blessing forcing him to lean his weight against the swordsman’s frame to carve as deep as he could go. “Hisashi, Hisashi!”

Hisashi emitted a guttural sound as he struggled to stay standing. He reached up, his hands trembling as he took hold of Yeonshin’s, and he tried to speak, but nothing left him but a rush of blood, coughed up from the depths of his throat.

Every last one of Haeseon’s senses had stilled, petrified in the wake of his shock. He looked up at the swordsman, his mind incapable of understanding what had happened. Hisashi shouldn’t have been there. He should’ve been seated in his chair halfway down the table. He shouldn’t have been there. He shouldn’t have moved to stand where Haeseon had.

He couldn’t die. It wasn’t possible.

All he could do was stare, until Yeonshin let go of the blade and Hisashi staggered. As quick as he could in his numbness, Haeseon rose to his knees to catch the swordsman when he fell, the whole of his weight hitting his chest. They crashed to the floor, where Haeseon struggled to rise again, cradling Hisashi’s body in his lap.

“Hisashi,” he whispered. His hands hovered over the swordsman’s chest, not daring to touch him lest the nightmare become true. He could only look, eyes flickering from his quivering form to the redness that stained the front of his robes, to the scowl of pain that marred his face. “Hisashi, why—”

A ragged cough startled him into silence, his breath ceasing. Hisashi spat out a mouthful of blood and wheezed, clutching at his robes, fingers digging into his stomach through the fabric. “F-fuck, this—it wa-wasn’t for you, I—” he rasped, every word a struggle to give voice to. “‘S f-fo—fuck, ‘s for Ji-Jihan, he—”

He gasped for air, jerking as his chest expanded against the blade of the knife. “Me dyin’ will h-hurt him less th-than if you—no one l-loves me. I’m n-not loved, even amongst th-the crew, but—” A tremor of pain went through him, tearing a horrible sound from the depths of his throat. “Th-they love you. Rather than me, you sh-should—”

“Hisashi,” Haeseon said. It was all he knew to say.

In spite of the strain it must’ve caused him, he lifted his gaze to Haeseon’s and held it, unsteady as his own was. “Go back,” he croaked, his throat convulsing. “Yo-you—fuck, you hear m-me?” He couldn’t breathe right anymore, wheezing with the strain of it. “Go back. The captain’s waiting f-for you to—go—”

The rest of his words were lost in another fit of coughing, and when it passed, Hisashi was still. His chest no longer heaved and his laboured breath no longer passed his lips. His eyes stared blankly up into Haeseon's, unseeing.

“Hisashi,” he whispered. As carefully as he knew how, he placed his hands against the swordsman’s chest, searching for the beat of his heart. “Hisashi.”

“How sweet,” Elyas said mockingly. He released the grip he had on Yeonshin’s neck and scoffed when the surgeon sank to his knees, weak in his anguish. “I hadn’t thought him the valiant, self-sacrificing kind. He seemed so,” he paused to think, “angry. So full of contempt for the world.”

Haeseon could hear nothing through the ring in his ear. It was a familiar sound, one that brought with it an echo of a scream, a distant memory of a sailor he had slain in outrage. It reminded him of anguish so overwhelming it blinded him and turned him into something inhuman, a creature whose sanity was not his own, but his Blessing’s.

This time, however, he was not blind. The incessant ring in his ear rendered him deaf to everything that wasn’t his own breath and the beat of his heart, but he saw everything. He saw the blood smeared on his hands where they clutched onto Hisashi’s robes and the knife’s hilt standing from his unmoving chest. He saw the red still spilling from the swordsman’s lips, and he saw Hisashi’s eyes, lifeless and empty as they stared back up at him.

Somewhere far away, someone cried out in agony. It was a familiar voice, but Haeseon could not hear it, not properly. It was as if he had gone completely deaf, the intrusive silence forcing its way into his left side as well, clawing deeper and deeper to tug and tear at the strings that still bound his senses—and that which made him human—together.

He was still himself. When he took his eyes off Hisashi’s dead ones to look at Yeonshin, who had buried his face in his hands, screaming, Haeseon was still himself. When he looked at Elyas, smiling as he reached for a new glass of wine, his sanity was still his own. “Take them back to their cage,” the Western Cardinal said with a wave of his hand. “I believe this has been enough for one day.”

Beneath his skin, his Blessing clawed at him in its frenzy, but Haeseon was still Haeseon. His anguish was mounting like a tidal wave, building until there was no more room in the whole of his body for it, but this time, he would not succumb to it.

This time, he would wield it. For Yeonshin, and for the man who had died to save his life.

-

THIS BOOK IS SO MUCH FUN WOW I SURE DO LOVE THIS BOOK HAHA THIS BOOK IS SO G R E A T

MKAY

I'M ANGRY AND I'M MAD

“I can. I can so easily.” I HAVE NEVER HATED A CHARACTER MORE OH MY GOD STEP ASIDE JEOFFRY BARATHEON, ELYAS LOWE CAN GO DEEPTHROAT A CHAINSAW

I'VE NEVER WANTED TO FIGHT MY OWN LAPTOP SO MUCH OKAY YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND

I FCKIN EXPLODED INTO TEARS WHEN YEONSHIN STABBED HIM, I SCARED THE SHIT OUTTA MY ROOMMATE WHEN I JUST STARTED CRYING HYSTERICALLY WTF

okay.

listen.

this is the first "proper" character death in this series so far. when rodel died in the first book, he did it "off screen", we only heard he'd died after it had already happened.

but nOW? NOW WE GET A FRONT-ROW SEAT WOW THIS IS SO GREAT THIS BOOK IS SO—

like i know i'm the author, i know i planned this and this is all my own fault bUT

HAESEON AND HISASHI NEVER GOT TO MAKE UP THEY NEVER GOT TO BE TSUNDERE FRIENDS-BUT-NOT-REALLY-FRIENDS OH MY GOD

oh my god i hate elyas lowe i hATE HIM SO MUCH

NOW EVERYONE'S TRAUMATISED AND EVERYTHING SUCKS AND WOW I'M sUrE evErYtHInG iS goNnA gEt bETtEr fRom HeREoNouT yAy


	25. chapter 24 - Fight and Flight

mkay so that has gotta be one of the most cliché chapter titles i've ever thought of and i might change it at some point, but it was the only thing i could think of sO ._.

aLSO we still on Brand X Music's Altered States because honestly that one just fits the "desperate lost helpless terrible whatever the fuck can anyone do" kind of mood we got going on here

LOVELY AIN'T IT

-

There was a numbness to Haeseon’s body, clutching at his muscles like the silent calm before a storm. When he was harshly dragged away from Hisashi’s corpse, he did not scream or cry or fight like he once might’ve. He hardly resisted at all, as if he had been robbed of the emotions that made him human; all he did was stare, eyes wide and searching, at the swordsman’s body on the floor, pale as snow and unmoving.

Hisashi, he called in his mind while in his chest, the canary cried out in his anguish. Hisashi.

Haeseon stumbled when he was pulled onto his feet, his legs so tense they refused to bend properly at the knees. He reached out blindly and found Yeonshin’s hand, and clutched tightly onto it, either to draw strength from the surgeon’s touch, or to give the surgeon some of his own. Which of them it was, Haeseon was not certain.

Yeonshin moved as if every muscle of him had turned to stone. Every step he took was jerky and stiff, petrified as he was in the wake of what he had been forced to do. His hands quivered with how firmly they were clenched at his sides, knuckles white beneath the blood his knife had drawn from the swordsman’s chest. His eyes were open wide as if he’d seen a ghost, and Haeseon knew he might as well have; Hisashi would never leave him now, forever burned into the very surface of his eyes.

Haeseon wanted to cry. There was a scream building in his throat, heavier than any he’d ever felt and expanding still, until it might’ve choked him without constraint. He heeded to release it lest it consume him, but even more so, he needed to get out of Elyas’ hold. He needed to get Yeonshin and Refur out of the stronghold before they would all be killed, or worse, used to hurt Jihan or Talya.

Colborn led their way back towards the room with the cage in silence, with another of the Western Cardinal’s men taking up the rear to ensure none of them attempted to escape. It was hardly necessary; while Yeonshin appeared all but dead to the world, Refur still cradled his broken arm with a sickly look on his face, as it was a struggle simply to remain upright.

Wait, Haeseon told himself, counting every step they took away from the dining hall. If Elyas catches you again, you will die, so wait. Beneath his skin, his Blessing thrashed, but it heeded his voice and did not rise.

Not until he called for it.

When they rounded the final corner before the door to their cage and Colborn reached for the keys at his belt, Haeseon took his chance. He gave his Blessing its freedom and feathers burst from his arms at the same time as he turned on the man behind him. With a shrill sound, he rose from the floor with a beat of his wings and folded his legs tightly against himself, and before the man could reach for his sword, Haeseon buried his claws deep into his chest and squeezed with all his might.

The man went down with a ragged cry, one that only fuelled the anguish churning in Haeseon’s chest. He did not wish to hurt anyone, not even those who sailed beneath the Western Cardinal’s flag, but unlike the last time he had been in a stronghold such as this one, this time he had no choice. This time, choosing not to hurt would be the same as choosing death, either for himself or for those who had protected him so many times.

Haeseon released the man as soon as he began to fall, throwing himself off his body. His feathers made him light, and the momentum brought him close enough to Colborn, and he swung his wings forward and into the pirate’s face to blind him, feathers pressing against his eyes. In his disorientation, Colborn reached for his face rather than his club, and Haeseon took his chance where he had it. He leaped into the air and sank his claws into Colborn’s abdomen, blood spilling hot over his talons.

The big man screamed in pain, but no matter how the sound plagued him, Haeseon did not let go. He allowed his weight to fall and kept his claws pushed deep, shredding Colborn's skin and tearing him open from chest to groin.

Nausea rose fast to his throat as soon as he stood upright once more, but he swallowed it down, refusing to give in to that which made him human. “We have to go,” he said instead and turned to the others. Yeonshin had yet to move, eyes staring unseeing at the wall, but Refur stood ready, as ready as he could be with his battered arm. “They will have heard us, so we have to go, quickly.”

Haeseon knew he would have to be the one to lead their escape, hard as it would be for him. In his distress, he took hold of Refur’s good hand with both of his own, holding him as best he could between the folds of his wings. “I need you to take care of Yeonshin,” he said, making his words slow and clear even though the archer would not understand no matter how he spoke. “Please, he’s not—he will not keep up unless we help him, and I’m the only one out of us who can fight, so—”

As carefully as his nerves allowed him, he pulled Refur close to the surgeon and guided their hands together. “Please,” he said. His voice broke and he knew he must’ve hardly made a convincing sight, but he was desperate. “I-I’ll keep us safe, so please don’t let go of him.”

If the archer doubted him, he did not show it. He nodded without pause and tucked his broken arm into the fold of his robes, and when Haeseon took off, Refur followed close behind, his hand closed tightly around Yeonshin’s to pull him along.

The stronghold was utterly foreign to Haeseon and he did not know which way to go, but he chose the turns that would lead him farthest away from the dining hall should Elyas still remain in his seat. It seemed an unlikely thing—if he hadn’t already retreated to nurse his drunkenness, he had surely heard the screams of the men Haeseon had attacked—so Haeseon kept his steps quick, not daring to slow his pace even for the sake of being careful.

Follow the wind, he told himself for every turn he took. The stronghold was hot from the fires burning in the open hearths, which made every gust of cold air slipping inside all the more obvious, but Haeseon’s senses were dull with the hysteria that tore at him. It made it all but impossible, just as it rendered him hard of hearing in his one good ear; when they rounded a corner after mere minutes of running, they came upon another one of Elyas’ men.

The pirate bore a barrel of spirits in his hands, one he dropped in shock as soon as his eyes met Haeseon’s. The cask cracked and split open, sending wine red as blood splashing over the floor of the narrow hallway. The man’s movements were clumsy as he reached for the sword at his hip, likely rendered so by what he had drank, but his voice worked just fine when he raised it to shout in warning.

“No,” Haeseon cried and lunged at him, his talons slipping over the wet floor. In his disorientation, he failed to raise his wings in time to deflect the pirate’s strike; his fist rammed hard against the side of Haeseon’s head, sending him staggering into the wall, stars bursting in his vision. “No, no, no, you—”

With his world still spinning, he threw himself at the man, wings beating hard to gain momentum. He lashed out with his talons and his claws found their mark, sinking into the soft flesh of the pirate’s face and throat to tear the life right out of him.

Even when they tumbled to the ground in a heap, Haeseon did not let go. His blood was rushing in his ears, his heart beating so fiercely against his ribs they might’ve shattered, and there was terror in him, fear of himself and what he had done. His wings quivered and shook and he could hardly breathe, gasps of air passing his lips in rapid succession until he felt as though he might faint.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, tears brimming in his eyes as he stared down at the man’s face, mauled by his claws. “I’m so, so sorry.”

A hand settled on his shoulder and gave a careful squeeze. Even in their rush, Refur’s expression was gentle when Haeseon looked up at him, as were his words, strange as they were, as he jerked his head down the hall. Nodding, Haeseon stood and wiped his eyes clean on his feathers. The archer was right; they had no time, even to mourn the fallen or those who had yet to fall.

They’d been running for only a matter of seconds when a sound like a warning bell sounded through the stronghold. At once, the whole of the fortress seemed to come to life, the walls quaking with movement from all around them. “Oh gods,” Haeseon said, his voice high with dread. “Oh gods, they’re looking for us. Even if we find the front doors, they will surely be watching it.”

He’d barely finished voicing his string of distress when Refur spoke to his side. The archer released his hold on Yeonshin for a moment to point towards the end of the hallway they had just stepped into, where a window stood, sealed by wooden shutters. It was small, but it stood close enough to the floor to make for an easy climb out.

“Yes,” Haeseon exclaimed in relief and drew in his feathers as he hurried over to the window to work it open, unhooking the hinges and throwing the shutters to the floor. At once, he received a face full of harsh wind and snow; a storm was raging without, but even in spite of the thin rags still clinging to his frame, he did not hesitate to work his way through the opening.

He fell on his shoulder in the snow and suppressed the shiver that went through him in favour of helping Yeonshin climb out. “Come, come,” he said as gently as he could, holding firmly onto the surgeon’s hands while Refur nudged him along from within. “Come with me, Yeonshin, I’ll keep you safe. I’ll get us out of here, I swear it.”

Whether or not Yeonshin could even hear him in his state of shock was unknown to Haeseon, but he coaxed him along all the same, pulling him against his chest when he came free from the window. “We’ll be alright, Yeonshin,” he whispered against the surgeon’s temple. “We’ll find Jihan. Jihan will know what to do.”

He hoped so with all his might, praying to whomever would listen that the captain was as good with his words as Yeonshin was, that he could convince the surgeon that what had happened had not been his fault.

In spite of his broken arm, Refur climbed out of the window with ease, his grip strong on the frame as he eased his body through it. He landed clumsily, however, his battered limb taking his weight when he fell into the snow. The sound he made was ragged, a harsh curse spat through gritted teeth, and when he stood again, he swayed slightly where he stood, his face pale as the snow around them.

“Are you alright?” Haeseon asked of him, voice high with worry. His worry must’ve been obvious, for the archer only nodded and reached for Yeonshin’s hand once more—even though he looked to be leaning more of his weight onto the surgeon than the other way around—before motioning for Haeseon to lead the way.

The huts and houses around them were crammed tightly together with hardly any space to walk between them. While it made it difficult to run, it was ideal, seeing as no patrols would be like to venture through such a narrow path. The houses that made up the stronghold were old and broken as well, with pieces of debris to make their path all the more difficult.

Just as they reached the outer wall of the fortress, a sound of heavy doors opening sounded through the howling of the wind, quickly followed by the voices of their pursuers. “They’re coming for us,” Haeseon said and turned to face the stronghold wall, as if staring at it would make it crumble or sink the two meters it towered over his head. “We can’t—we have to hide, we can hide in one of the houses and wait for them to pass, or,” he threw a fretful glance over his shoulder, “I could carry us out one by one, but there’s no time, we have to wait for them to pass us first, but—”

Refur interrupted him halfway through his frantic babble by pushing Yeonshin towards him and speaking just as quickly in foreign words. Upon Haeseon’s confusion, he pointed at the surgeon, then at Haeseon, and finally at the top of the wall, all the while repeating the same words over and over.

“But if I carry Yeonshin over the wall,” Haeseon said when he understood, “what about you?”

He wasn’t certain if the archer knew what he had asked, but whether or not he did, he gave his answer all the same. He looked around and hurried over to the nearest house to grab hold of a piece of debris that had fallen from its roof. It made for a poor weapon, but Refur held it in his good had as if it had been a sword, and gestured towards the stronghold from which they had come.

Realisation dawned quickly on Haeseon this time, eyes growing wide with dread. “No,” he said firmly, and far too loudly. “No, no, I can’t leave you behind, I won’t! We can get out, all of us, we just have to think.”

The archer paid him no heed. Without a word, he let go of his stick and came over to guide Yeonshin’s arms around Haeseon’s neck, much in the same manner he had what felt like an eternity ago, when Talya had carried Haeseon out of the glacier of Svalbard. “Listen to me,” Haeseon pleaded, although he did not resist for fear of shoving the surgeon away. “Refur, it doesn’t have to be this way. We can get out, I know we can, only—”

The rest of his words were lost when a loud voice sounded from whence they’d come; their pursuers had likely found the window they had climbed through. Even for the storm, their tracks were still fresh in the snow, which gave them only a matter of minutes before they would be caught.

“Refur,” Haeseon said, although he did not know what words to speak next. The archer did not understand him, and even if he could’ve, he was firm in his determination, his movements quick and without hesitation as he secured Yeonshin’s grip around Haeseon’s shoulders and told him, in foreign words, to hold on as tightly as he could. “Refur—”

The northerner met Haeseon’s eyes and smiled, as if he wasn’t walking into his doom. It was a friendly curl of the lips, small and warm and reassuring, and he turned away before Haeseon could say anything more. Refur grabbed the stick from the snow and took off back into the cluster of houses, banging the club against the walls to draw their pursuers’ attention as he went.

“Oh gods,” Haeseon said shrilly. The want to scream was stronger than ever now, his chest and throat burning with the need for it, but with Yeonshin’s weight on him, there was only one thing he could do. “Oh gods, shit!”

He spread his Blessing’s wings wide and beat them with all his might, struggling to make them carry both his and the surgeon’s weight amidst the storm’s howling winds. It took him several attempts before he could rise from the ground, his arms aching with the effort it took, but he ground his teeth and persisted, refusing to lose even an inch of the air he gained.

He wanted to cry when he heard a flare in Elyas’ pirates’ voices, knowing they had found Refur. He wanted to cry and scream and, for the first time in his life, he wanted all of them to die, every man sailing under the Western Cardinal’s flag. He wanted them to die so they wouldn’t hurt Refur, and he wanted them to die for what had happened to Hisashi.

Haeseon held out until he had reached just past the top of the wall before his arms gave in and his wings folded under their combined weight. They crashed into the snow; Haeseon took the brunt of Yeonshin’s weight onto his back and had the air shoved out of his lungs, but the lack of stones and ice left them unharmed. With no time to waste, he drew most of his feathers back into his body and pushed himself upright, struggling for a moment to catch his breath once more before rising the rest of the way and pulling Yeonshin onto his feet.

“Come on,” he panted, every cell of him screaming with exhaustion. He refused to look back at the wall or the stronghold, knowing he might crumble in his resolve if he did. “Jihan will find us. Jihan and Talya will find us, but we have to go to them, Yeonshin. We have to go to meet them, then they will keep us safe.”

His words were just as much for himself as they were for the surgeon. He clung to them with all his might to keep his bravery and hold his tears at bay as he set off into the uncharted cold, blind and distraught and utterly helpless. In his chest, the canary still cried out in its anguish, but Haeseon held his tongue, knowing all he had to do then was to keep Yeonshin safe, lest his fragile state be shattered further still.

Thus he held tightly onto the surgeon’s hand and pulled him away through the snow, until they were swallowed by the endless white of winter.

-

CAN THEY PLEASE CATCH A BREAK OR SOMETHING

PLEASE

istg this book has become sO GRIM I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED

>:(

first hisashi and now refur >:( and refur went out like a goddamn champ okay he didn't even hesitate or nothing >:( what a goddamn hero >:(((

so this chapter is a bit short, i know, but it’s something, at least, and i’m proud of it in the wake of what’s been going on >.< ahhhh, this week so far has been absolute shit, i can feel these guys glaring daggers at me every time i set foot in a class or walk through the hallways… still, writing this was a bit cathartic, like it’s full of sHET and bAD TERRIBLE THINGS and just ALL THAT AWFUL STUFF UGH so it was a nice way to channel the crap i’ve been going through

also haesae :(((( he had to :((((( hurt and kill people :(((((((((( OH GOD BOTH HE AND YEONSHIN ARE GONNA BE SO TRAUMATISED BY THIS EVENT LIKE Y'ALL DON'T UNDERSTAND THEY MIGHT'VE ESCAPED BUT WE AIN'T DONE BY A LONG-SHOT NOOOOOO EVERYTHING'S STILL GONNA SUCK

GREAT

WONDERFUL

UGH

>:[


	26. chapter 25 - Weak, At Last

*plucks petals from a flower* this chapter will not be sad, this chapter will be sad, this chapter will nOT be sad, this chapter will be sad, dON'T LET THIS CHAPTER BE SAD—

._.

Ramin Djawadi - What Is Dead May Never Die 

Fairy Tail - Main Theme (Piano version) 

Jonas Göbel - Empty Streets 

-

Hours upon hours had had time to pass by the time Haeseon began to slow down in his task of aimlessly leading Yeonshin through the endless hills of white. The snow had long since ceased to fall and the storm had settled into the stillness of night, and while it might’ve been a relief for Haeseon’s weary body, the lack of the wind’s howling allowed the anguish in him to rampage undisturbed within his chest. It prickled beneath his skin and tore at his sanity, yet for the surgeon’s sake, he refused to let him succumb to it.

I won’t cry, he said sternly to himself every time the thought of Hisashi dying in his arms came barreling back to him. It never strayed far, rising with each pulse of hurt at his temples, hiding in every wave of exhaustion that plagued his muscles for every step he took. He felt weak beyond compare, as if a mere gust of a wind could throw him off his feet, but no matter how he wanted to sink to his knees in the snow and give in, Haeseon held tightly onto Yeonshin’s hand and persisted.

He refused to cry. He wouldn’t, not until the surgeon was safe in the arms of those who could help him heal.

Haeseon did not know where they were or where they were going, but once the storm began to subside and the winds ceased to blow so fiercely, it became easier to see what lay around them, even in spite of the night's darkness. He still refused to look over his shoulder at whence they’d come, as if he might’ve seen a ghost of whom he’d left behind following them in their tracks. 

As if the skies heard his anguish and took pity on him, not long after the dark had fallen, streaks of grey and yellow began to spread across the heavens. The Aurora was not as strong as it had been the first time Haeseon had seen it, but it gave him light and a path to walk, so he followed their course and prayed they would lead him to those he so yearned to see.

The dancing lights gave him comfort and slowed the frantic beat of his heart until it fell in rhythm with the distant sound of the drum, echoing from the mountain ridge that spread out before them. In his chest, the canary finally settled, ceasing its thrashing to instead cry out in a joyless song. Whether it was in longing or in fear of the foreign heartbeat, or for the grief that ate at his thoughts, Haeseon could not say.

“When the Aurora shines, those chosen by Óðinn march to join him in Valhalla,” Talya had told him, and even though he doubted Hisashi had heeded the same gods as the northerners did, Haeseon wished with all his might that she’d been right.

He and Yeonshin might’ve been walking for an eternity when they came upon human voices, rising from somewhere far to their left, behind a rise of snowy hills. At once, Haeseon came to a halt in the snow, every cell of him ringing with alarm. The voices were drawing nearer, foreign words accompanied by footsteps, and amidst the snowy plains, there was nowhere to hide from whomever it was that had come upon them.

Their only chance was to run, but it felt like an impossible feat. Not only was Haeseon exhausted to the bone and cold to boot, the snow on the ground rose all the way to his knees and made the mere thought of quick movements unfathomable. They would hardly make it ten meters without collapsing, and even if the strangers were not of the north, if they were walking around in the middle of nowhere, they were undoubtedly better equipped for trudging through the snow.

It would hardly be any easier to fight off whomever it was that was drawing near, but Haeseon pulled Yeonshin close until he stood behind his back and spread his stance, and waited, breath sitting tight in his throat.

There were five of them, Haeseon counted when they appeared atop the hill, five men dressed in leather and furs and armed with steel. Even in spite of the night’s darkness, a sense of familiarity clung to the strangers, but when their eyes found Haeseon and Yeonshin and they stilled in their surprise, the instincts of Haeseon’s Blessing had him blind with the urge to keep his friend from harm. He leaned forward and spread his wings wide to hide Yeonshin from view, and to make himself look as big as he could.

“Stay back!” he cried when one of the men took a step their way. His voice came out shrill and half inhuman, his warning echoing in the night. The stranger halted, shock crossing his face; he said something to his companions, his words foreign to Haeseon’s ears. One of them turned and took off whence they’d come, retreating in a hurry, while the rest of them began to descend from the hill. “Stay back, you hear me? Don’t come any closer!”

Perhaps it was a cause of the difference of tongue, but the men refused to heed his warnings. They continued in their approach, speaking loudly in words Haeseon could not understand. For every warning that went unheard, Haeseon grew more and more distressed, and when the strangers stepped within reach of his wings, he lashed out.

He struck the closest one in the jaw with the bone of his wing before rounding on the next, a shriek of a cry spilling from his lips. As if by reflex, the man’s hand went to the axe at his waist, a gesture that had Haeseon’s outrage flaring. “Back!” he shouted and beat his wings hard enough to rise into the air so he could lash out with his talons, his sharp claws barely catching the front of the stranger’s furs. “Don’t come any closer!”

The men were shouting now, their shock clear as day. They were loathe to draw the weapons they carried, and had Haeseon been in a clearer state of mind, perhaps their hesitance would’ve been enough for him to know the strangers bore no ill intent. As he was, however, there was only one clear thought in his mind; he would keep Yeonshin safe from harm until they found Jihan.

Until they found their home.

Their loud voices only served to agitate him further, so much so that when one of the strangers circled him and reached for Yeonshin to drag him out of the way, Haeseon did not hesitate to strike with every intent of causing pain. With a harsh beat of his wings, he rose into the air, and with a sound like a growl, he sank his claws into the man’s outreached arm.

Through the many layers the stranger wore, Haeseon didn’t manage to get a proper grip on him; when the man exclaimed in pain and withdrew his arm, Haeseon’s talons slipped and shredded through the heavy leather to carve gouges into his skin. They were shallow—at least far more so than could’ve been—but they bled all the same, blood spraying across the snow.

Haeseon landed heavily, his muscles screaming in protest, but he took his previous stance all the same and spread his wings wide in front of Yeonshin. “Don’t touch him,” he hissed. His head was throbbing and his vision blurred at the edges, but even when the strangers flocked around the man he had injured, anger beginning to exude from them, Haeseon refused to yield.

The man clutched his bleeding arm and shouted at him, loud and harsh and laced with incredulity, but all it did was goad Haeseon on, proving his instincts right. When he next parted his lips, the words that left him were hardly human, shrill with his Blessing’s fury. “Don’t touch him, don’t come any closer, don’t—I will hurt you if you do!” he cried, his throat burning with his voice. His feathers stood on edge across his wings, spread wide to make him look bigger than he truly was. “I will hurt you ten times over, I will scratch your eyes out, I swear I will—”

“Songbird!”

All at once, the air left Haeseon’s lungs in a sharp exhale, the rage in him stilling. The voice, so achingly familiar, pulled his attention away from the strangers as if they had disappeared from his sight. He looked up to the hill whence they’d come and at the man who stood there now, heaving with laboured breath. The Aurora’s lights danced across his pale face and illuminated him, catching on the sweat at his temples and the tight furrow of his brow.

Oh, Haeseon thought, the whole of him beginning to tremble. He knew him, he knew the man who had come for him, but the suddenness of his appearance made Haeseon’s mind slow. All he could do was stare, wings still raised to shield Yeonshin, as the captain began his descent down the hill, running as fast as he could through the deep snow.

Jihan shoved the northern pirates out of the way and crossed the rest of the way to Haeseon as fast as he could through the snow. There was not an ounce of fright or hesitation to his approach, only a frantic desperation as he reached out and drew Haeseon firmly against his chest. “Songbird,” he said, over and over, as if it was a prayer for him. “Gods, fuck, you’ve come back, you’re here, songbird.”

Jihan, Haeseon thought, the numbness suddenly clearing from his mind. It’s Jihan. As soon as the name crossed his mind, it was as if the strength he had so desperately clung to for the sake of protecting his friend was torn out of him. His wings fell to his sides and his knees threatened to fold, buckling until Jihan was the only thing to keep him from falling.

In the arms of his beloved, Haeseon could finally allow himself to be weak. He could finally yield to the anguish he had kept so fiercely at bay, and when he did, tears spilled unrestrained from his eyes.

“Jihan,” he cried against the captain’s chest, his frame plagued by frantic sobs. “Ji-Jihan—” His voice echoed through the night, no effort left in him to attempt to stifle his weeping. He cried for those he had hurt and killed, he cried for Refur, who had stayed behind and died to let them escape. He cried for Yeonshin, whose mind was cracked and broken, and he cried for Hisashi, whom he had held in his arms as he'd drawn his last breath, parting from the world with the dying thought that no one loved him.

All he could do was cry and cling to Jihan for his sanity. He could sense the captain’s distress and his confusion, but no matter how hard he tried, no sensible words would leave his lips, only a string of incoherent sobs. Jihan attempted to calm him, hushing him in spite of his own obvious alarm, but Haeseon could not stop his tears from falling.

When he finally managed to gather his thoughts once more, the first sane one he could grasp at was a name, one that made the ache in him hurt ten times more. He pushed hard against the captain’s chest to free himself from his arms, and before Jihan could do so much as look at him in bewilderment, Haeseon made him turn, shoving him towards whom he had so desperately tried to keep safe.

“Songbird, what are you—”

“He needs you more,” Haeseon croaked through his tears and kept pushing, guiding the captain through his clear reluctance to let him go. “H-he’s not—Yeonshin, he—please, Jihan, y-you have to help him.”

The surgeon did not immediately look up when Jihan came to stand in front of him. In his lingering state of shock, he only stared at the snowy ground, his gaze distant and unseeing, as if he hadn’t realised any of what had happened since they’d stopped in their tracks. “Yeonshin,” the captain said slowly, worry rising fast to his face when Yeonshin said nothing in reply. “Yeonshin, can you hear me? What’s—what happened to him?”

The question was meant for Haeseon, but he could not bring himself to answer it. He didn’t know what words to speak to make the truth any less painful.

Only when Jihan placed his hands on Yeonshin’s shoulders did the surgeon finally stir. Slowly, he raised his head and looked at the captain for a long moment, as if he could not truly see him. Realisation came to him slowly, and when it did, it made the ache in Haeseon that much worse.

Yeonshin jerked out of his state of shock with a violent convulsion, recoiling from Jihan’s touch with so much force he stumbled over his own feet and fell onto his behind in the snow. His eyes grew wide and his breath frantic, until it passed his lips in thin, sharp takes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered shrilly. His voice was sharp as a knife; it hurt Haeseon like one, drawing another wave of weeping from the depth of his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeonshin,” Jihan said, beyond himself with consternation upon the surgeon’s behaviour. “Yeonshin, what are you—” When he moved to take a step closer, Yeonshin flinched and buried his face in his hands, as if he wanted to hide. “Yeonshin—”

“I’m so sorry,” was all the surgeon said, wheezing, over and over. “Forgive me, Jihan, forgive me, I’m sorry—”

Haeseon could do nothing but cry as he watched the captain’s attempts to calm Yeonshin down enough to speak properly. He knew he would have to be the one to tell Jihan what had happened, but he couldn’t; it hurt too much to remember, his heart cracked and torn with his sorrow.

He did not know how much time had passed when he felt a presence behind him and warm hands on his shoulders. He did not flinch, so lost was he in his tears that he could barely muster the strength to be surprised, but he recognised the newcomer’s voice when he spoke. “Canary,” Jun said and pulled him gently into his arms. “Canary, what has happened?”

The cook spoke quietly, but upon his prompt, Jihan turned to them as well, desperate for an answer. Before him, Yeonshin sat curled in on himself in the snow, shaking and rocking back and forth, all the while uttering his endless pleas for forgiveness for what he had done.

It hurt him more than he could bear, but Haeseon swallowed his cries as best he could and met his beloved’s gaze. “He pushed me out of the way,” he whispered.

“He—what?” Jihan asked, more bewildered than before. “Who did?”

Fresh tears rose to Haeseon’s eyes and blurred the world before him. “He pushed me out of the way,” he said again, every word trembling. “Elyas Lowe tried to make Yeonshin k-kill me, b-but Hisashi, he—” His throat convulsed and he curled in on himself, nearly slipping from Jun’s embrace as he sank to his knees. “He pushed me out of the way,” he cried. “He saved me, a-and he died for it.”

Jihan went still as stone, unbreathing, the whole of his frame hardening, but for the tears in his eyes, Haeseon could not see it. He could only struggle to speak, even though the tremor of Jun’s hands on his arms made him want to weep and weep and never stop. “Lowe made Yeonshin turn on me,” he said, his words barely coherent anymore. “H-he had a knife, a-and Lowe, he took hold of Yeonshin’s arm and used his B-Blessing to—he tried to make Yeonshin—”

Recounting what had happened was like death, cold and suffocating. “He couldn’t stop it,” Haeseon sobbed. He raised his hands to claw at his skin, but Jun stopped him, taking hold of his wrists. “Yeo-Yeonshin screamed at me t-to run, but I couldn’t, and—Hisashi saved me, he pushed me out of the way, and the knife, it—” He could not say it. The words wouldn’t come, held back by his anguish.

“We ran,” he croaked instead. Half of him wanted to pry himself out of Jun’s hold, knowing he deserved none of his warmth, while the other half wanted to bury himself in the cook’s embrace and never leave. “I—we ran, but there was nowhere we could go. There were walls everywhere and there was no time, a-and Refur’s arm was broken, but—to give us t-time, he took a stick from one of the buildings and told us to go, and—”

“Refur is dead?” Haeseon flinched then, having not realised Talya’s presence. He turned and felt his heart break further apart upon the Northern Cardinal’s expression, torment spreading quick across her face. “He stayed behind?” she asked. Her voice was thin, as if she could not breathe. “He is dead?”

The sight of her pain made the guilt that ate at Haeseon’s heart grow stronger, reaching up to claw at his lungs and throat as well. “I’m sorry, Talya,” he said, pleading. “I’m so sorry. I tried to make him come, but he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t listen, he—” He drew a quivering breath, desperate to make her see the truth of what the archer had done. “He gave us time,” he croaked. “He—he smiled and pushed me towards the wall, a-and then he…”

It was all he could bear to say. His grief lay beyond words, and he was too weak to bear it any longer. When Talya looked away, raising her eyes to the skies’ Aurora, Haeseon turned back to Jihan, who hadn’t moved, even to draw breath. “It wasn’t his fault, Jihan,” he cried. If there had been strength in his limbs, he would’ve gone to him, touched him, reassured him in any way he could. “It wasn’t, it was Elyas Lowe, he used his Blessing, it wasn’t—”

“I know.” The captain’s voice was laced with rage and ache, but none of it was for Yeonshin. Jihan crouched before the surgeon, hands trembling as he placed them on his arms. “It wasn’t you, Yeonshin,” he said. He spoke loudly to break through the endless pleas for forgiveness Yeonshin whispered into the night in his hysteria. “You hear me. It wasn’t you.”

“It was!” The surgeon slid his hands into his hair and tugged sharply, as if tearing them out would rid him of the horrible memories carved into his mind. “My hands held the knife,” he said shrilly. “Mine. My legs carried me forward, my strength pushed the blade into his chest, it was—” A sob spilled from his lips, small and pitiful, like that of a child’s. “I couldn’t stop it,” he whimpered. “I couldn’t stop it, it was me, Hisashi is dead because of me!”

“He’s not,” Jihan insisted, clutching onto the surgeon’s arms. He looked like he wanted to scream, as if his cry was tearing at his throat from within. “It wasn’t you, it was that fucking son of a bitch! He’s the one who did this, not you!”

Yeonshin refused to hear it, shaking his head and hissing apologies under his breath without pause. Helpless, Jihan pressed his brow against the surgeon’s temple, eyes shut tight as he pulled him into his arms. “Don’t do this to yourself, Yeonshin,” he said hoarsely. “It wasn’t you. It wasn’t.”

It took its time, but slowly, Yeonshin’s frantic pleas lost their voice to his tears, until he was crying without restraint. He still refused to show his face, his hands pressing hard against his eyes as he wailed, and Jihan held him through it all, as if he would lose him should he let him go. Even now, Haeseon could not cease his weeping. Behind him, Jun’s frame trembled against his back, his hands squeezing him while he sobbed silently into Haeseon’s hair.

Only when the surgeon’s cries had began to fade did Jihan speak again. “I want him dead,” he said with a voice as cold and stiff as stone. “I want Elyas Lowe dead, and I want him dead by my blade.”

“He has nowhere to run,” Talya said at once. Her words were every bit as dark, no trace of her cheeriness to be found. “Iric has landed at Reykjavík to the south and seized Lowe’s ship, and Freyr is traveling our way from the west as we speak. Your brother sails your ship from the north. The only way Lowe can go is east, towards Hellnar or Ólafsvik, and unless Hel has a ship waiting for him there, he will be caught between us and the sea.”

“Then that is where he will die.” Jihan spoke with such certainty, it was as if he held the quill that wrote the world’s fate in his hand, as if he had engraved the Western Cardinal’s death into destiny itself. “You can track him, can you not, Sabelsdottír?” he asked.

“Not in the night,” Talya said stiffly. There was a tension between the two, even Haeseon could tell as much, but in his exhaustion, there was little he could do to heed it. “The storm has hidden most of Haeseon’s tracks, and in the black of night, I can’t promise to lead your way safely. In my Blessing’s form, I could find him on my own, but should you want to come with me, we will have to wait until morning.”

Jihan’s discontent was clear, but he held his tongue and merely nodded. “Then we will leave at first light,” he said. Talya caught the dismissiveness of his tone easily enough; upon his words, she gave a curt nod and turned to leave, although not before sparing Haeseon another look and what was a valiant attempt at a smile.

The northern pirates went with her, leaving the four of pirates of the August’s crew alone in their grief.

For what might’ve been hours, they remained out in the night, long after the Aurora had flickered and faded from the sky. It was cold, but none of them said a word of complaint. They only waited, until eventually Jihan stirred. “Come,” he murmured against Yeonshin’s temple and coaxed him with unbearable gentleness to unfold from his tension. “You need to sleep.”

The surgeon said nothing, neither to agree or resist when Jihan pulled him to his feet. He leaned heavily on the captain, as if all his strength had left him, his eyes red-rimmed from his tears. With a pleading glance Haeseon’s way, Jihan guided Yeonshin’s arm around his shoulder and helped him walk. “I’m sorry, songbird,” he said quietly when he reached them, but Haeseon only shook his head.

He understood. He craved his beloved’s touch more than anything, but he knew Yeonshin needed it more.

“Up you go, canary,” Jun said and helped him stand. The cook’s cheeks were wet and his lip still trembled, but he donned a brave face as he guided Haeseon to follow the two others. “Be strong for me for a little while longer. We’ve raised camp just beyond those hills.”

His words nearly made Haeseon cry all over again, this time out of gratitude for the Aurora, which truly had led their way back home. To stop his tears from falling, he asked Jun about what had happened since they’d been taken. The cook told him they had left Ísafjörður and evacuated its people, believing it unsafe for those lingering, and that half of the August’s crew had taken the ship out to sea.

Seunggi, who could not yet walk, had pleaded to stay with Jihan to search for them, but the captain had refused, demanding his brother take to the sea where he would be safer. Daewon and Lucya and a handful of others had gone with him, to sail south along the coast of Iceland until they’d rendezvous with Freyr to the west.

When they reached the small encampment, Haeseon realised for the second time the severity of the tension between the two crews. The northern pirates glowered at them as they walked past, silent in their staring; the man Haeseon had hurt in his distress looked angrier than most, hissing under his breath while the vǫlva tended to the wounds on his arm.

Haeseon would apologise for it once he’d regained some of his strength. Now, he felt exhausted and raw, like an exposed nerve, and all he wanted to do was climb into Jihan’s embrace and pretend none of the terrors he had witnessed were true.

The captain led Yeonshin over to Jun’s tent and lay him down on the furs. In a quiet voice, he asked the cook to take Haeseon to his own tent and then return to keep watch over Yeonshin in the night. Jun complied, but not before Jihan reached for Haeseon’s hand. “Wait for me, songbird,” he said, and Haeseon nodded wordlessly.

Well inside the captain’s hut, Jun reached for a heavy sack at the head of the bedding and pulled out several furs for Haeseon to wear. “Why are you always the one to suffer most through this cold?” he asked with a joyless smile. He waited until Haeseon had pulled one of the robes over his shoulders before nodding and moving to leave. “I will bring you something to eat, canary.”

Even though his stomach rumbled in hunger, food was the last thing on Haeseon’s mind. Still, when the cook brought him some hard bread and dried fish, he accepted it with a smile and forced himself to take a bite, if only to appease Jun. The cook nodded in content before taking his leave, but not before leaning down to press his lips against the top of Haeseon’s head.

Haeseon waited anxiously for Jihan to come, wringing his hands and only barely managing to keep from rubbing at the gouges he had carved into his own arms back at Lowe’s stronghold. The wounds burned and he belatedly wished he would’ve asked Jun if he had any kind of salve to give. He did not want to even imagine asking Yeonshin for help, not when he was so fragile. It would only hurt him, surely, to be reminded of their captivity.

When Jihan finally returned, he entered the tent with utmost care, as if he believed Haeseon might’ve fallen asleep. “Songbird,” he said when he found him awake, sitting where Jun had left him atop the furs that made the captain’s bedding. “Are you…”

He did not finish his question, and Haeseon knew his answer to it was written all over his face. He was not alright; he would likely never be alright ever again, but when Jihan came to sit in front of him and reached over to light a lantern beside the furs, Haeseon felt more at peace, if only by a fraction.

“How is he?” he asked in a mumble. The hoarseness of his voice surprised himself, even though it likely shouldn’t, what with how he had cried.

The flickering light of the candle cast a grave shadow over the captain’s face, one that made him look even wearier than he was. “Bad,” he said and sighed, brows pinched in torment. “No matter what I said to him, he refused to speak or even look at me. I don’t know if…” He ran a hand through his hair, lips curling down. “He might not be the way he used to ever again. This—it could break him.”

Haeseon parted his lips and closed them again. He wished so dearly to know the right words to speak or the proper course of action to take to make everything good again, but there was nothing he could think of to make it better. He couldn’t reassure himself, let alone his beloved, whom he had so yearned to see again.

They sat so close, yet Haeseon did not dare reach out the rest of the way.

“What will you do, songbird?” Jihan asked when the silence grew long. “Come morning, I will go find that cursed bastard and—” He interrupted himself before his voice could grow louder by even a fraction. Instead, he sighed, and searched for Haeseon’s eyes. “You could stay with Jun.”

“No.” Haeseon shook his head, clutching at the edges of the furs he wore over his shoulder. “I will go,” he said and tried to keep his voice as firm as he could. He felt it like fire in his veins, the need to see through what Elyas Lowe had began. “I have to.”

“You don’t,” the captain said. His left hand twitched in his lap, as if he wanted to cross the distance still lingering between them, but just like Haeseon, he hesitated. “If it’s too hard for you, you don’t have to go.”

Again, Haeseon shook his head, struggling to give voice to the grim thoughts in his head. “I don’t want to kill him,” he said slowly, “but I—he—” He drew a quivering breath and closed his eyes against the memories of the horrors he had seen. “He should be dead,” he whispered. “I want—he should be dead.”

Speaking the words made him feel hollow, but it was a truth he could not be rid of no matter how hard he tried. Elyas Lowe should die for what he had done. Not even the canary protested, remaining quiet in his chest through his self-loathing. “Does it make me a monster?” he asked of his beloved. “Does it make me cruel? To wish for him to be—does it change me?”

Upon his words, Jihan finally took his hands into his own and held them tightly. “Look at me, songbird,” he said and waited, in spite of his urgency, for Haeseon to do as told. When their eyes met, some of the hardness of the captain’s jaw eased to give way for the tenderness with which he always looked at Haeseon. “Am I a monster?” he asked. “Am I a monster to you?”

“No,” Haeseon said at once. The mere thought made him ache. “You’re not. Never.”

Jihan nodded. “That is your answer,” he said. “You’re you, songbird, and no one else. You’re you, and I love you for it.”

He spoke with such certainty, it was all but impossible to not believe him. Haeseon pressed his lips together and nodded, and tried not to cry again.

As it always was, the captain’s touch was careful as could be as he held Haeseon’s hands, as if he believed Haeseon might shatter from it. Jihan turned them over until Haeseon’s underarms faced up, and an expression of hurt settled on his face upon the sight of the red marks Haeseon had gouged into his own skin. His brow knitted tightly, his eyes narrowing as if he might’ve been in pain from the sight alone.

“You must’ve been so frightened,” Jihan said very quietly. He traced his thumb along one of the scratches, the prosthetic digit trembling where it touched him. The wounds were Haeseon’s to bear, but from the ache in the captain’s voice, they might as well have been his own.

Haeseon drew an unsteady breath and closed his eyes. He had missed his beloved’s touch more than he could’ve imagined, and now that he had it again, it threatened to overwhelm him. “I was,” he whispered at last. “There was nothing I could do but be afraid when faced with Hel, and when Elyas made Yeonshin turn on me, I…” Tears rose quickly to his eyes at the memory of what had happened and he shook his head roughly to be rid of them. He had cried a lifetime’s worth already, left exhausted in the embrace of his sorrow.

In the face of his struggle, Jihan was patient as always. He gave him all the time he needed to find his words once more. With one hand, the captain reached for a phial from a satchel next to his bedding and uncorked it, turning it on its head to drip the salve meant for his shoulder onto Haeseon’s arm. It made Haeseon shudder, but he made himself be still when Jihan began to spread the ointment across his wounds, his touch light as a feather.

The captain’s gentleness made his anguish flare, the flames of it fed by his guilt. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine,” he whispered. “What happened to Hisashi.”

“There is nothing you could’ve done, songbird,” Jihan said at once. Even though his voice grew tight, his hold on Haeseon remained as gentle as before. “You were outnumbered by a dozen when Yeonshin—when Lowe killed Hisashi.” The words were like venom on his tongue. He did not look up from his task of treating Haeseon’s wounds, but before his eyes, Haeseon could see the tension to his jaw and the deep furrow of his brow. “Even if you had ran, where could you have gone?”

Haeseon had no answer to give, but it did little to soothe him in his guilt. “He shouldn’t have died,” he said hoarsely. “Hisashi wasn’t—he said no one loved him. He said it as if no one would mourn, as if no one would hurt if he was gone, he—” A sob rose to his throat and interrupted the hollow thought. It was what hurt him most, the loneliness that the swordsman must’ve felt in his final moments. “He died thinking no one would find sorrow in his death.”

“And he was wrong,” Jihan said. There was defiance to his tone now, as if it was an argument he would rather die than lose. As if the thinking it was worse than death. “It doesn’t matter how stubborn he was, how pig-headed or arrogant or angry, he—” Before his voice could flare and grow any louder, the captain halted his treatment of Haeseon’s scratches and drew a sharp breath. He looked up at Haeseon, tears spilling silently down his cheeks. “The seas overflow with our sorrow, songbird,” he croaked, pleading. “We will hurt for him until we draw our final breath, just as we do for Rodel and everyone else we’ve lost.”

In spite of his own anguish, Haeseon freed himself from Jihan’s grip so he could wipe away his tears, brushing his thumbs across the dark skin beneath the captain’s eyes. “He was wrong,” he echoed and leaned close, until he could press his brow against his beloved’s. “We will never forget.”

“We have to give him peace,” Jihan said. Beneath the ache in him, his anger burned hot, churning and thrashing against the cage in which he had trapped it. It seeped into his words, but the captain would let it go no further than that, Haeseon knew. Not now. Not when he was held in Jihan’s arms, where no harm would ever come to him. “We have to give him the kind of peace he would want.”

Haeseon knew of what he spoke. It was not peace as he would know it, nor the peace they had given Rodel, but vengeance upon those who had led Hisashi to his grave. It was battle and pain and death, all the hurt the swordsman had felt returned ten times over. It was what held Jihan together even now; the thought of revenge was all that stood between him and the rage that would inevitable come bursting out of him, torn from him by the loss of his comrade.

Death was what the captain promised, the death of Elyas Lowe. Haeseon knew of what he spoke, and he nodded all the same, hatred burning like a poison in his veins. “Yes,” he said, even though it made him cold. “Whatever it takes, we will give him peace.”

-

you thought we were done crying well you were wRONG

“The seas overflow with our sorrow, songbird.” MYEAH THEY SURE DO THANKS FOR THAT PUNCH TO THE GUT JIHAN

everyone is sad now

great

gREAT

THIS BOOK IS SO GREAT

WHEN WILL HAESEON AND JIHAN EVEN DO THE DO OH MY GOD

WHEN CAN I GO FROM WANTING TO STAB MYSELF WITH A BALLPOINT PEN FROM ALL THE ANGST TO WANTING TO SKIP AROUND IN HAPPINESS LIKE I DID WITH THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

PLS

LET THAT HAPPEN

^literally me yelling at myself for my own story. that's how low i've sank.

._.

aLSO i kinda realised i've made a mistake plot-wise........ it's nothing earth-shattering, it's just a really stupid mistake on my behalf and uGH it takes away a surprise element from this late in the story

>:T

i'll go a bit more into depth about it in a separate post tomorrow, but it's almost midnight here and i'm super tired so i'm gonna heck off to bed now

aka

TIME TO CRY MYSELF TO SLEEP JUST LIKE YEONSHIN AND HAESEON AND LITERALLY EVERYONE WOW THIS BOOK SURE IS F U N


	27. chapter 26 - Chasing Death

BOY WITH LUV CAN HAVE MY WHOLE HEART THAT IS ALL I HAVE TO SAY IT SAVES ME EVEN THOUGH THINGS KEEP GOING TO SHET FOR HAESEON AND EVERYONE ELSE

also, can i just.....

"there is nothing stronger than a boy with love" <— so like that's haeseon right there you can't convince me otherwise and you can't make me stop crying over it.

OKAY

READ ON

-

When they came upon the stronghold, barely an hour after the break of dawn, it was void of life, abandoned by the Western Cardinal’s men. The gates had been left open, as if in invitation for those Elyas had known would come looking for him. There wasn’t a sound to be heard; even the wind itself had stilled. To Haeseon, it was as if he’d gone deaf in his left ear as well.

Talya went in first, in her Blessing’s form, to search for stragglers or any of the western pirates lingering for a trap. Her posture was stiff and the fur along her back raised and ragged the deeper she went, smelling the air for any traces of hostiles still remaining. There was an urgency to the way she moved, and Haeseon knew she was looking for Refur, searching for he who had so heroically stayed behind to save them.

Only when she returned to the gates did the others follow, with the exception of Yeonshin, Jun, and Xiao. The surgeon’s fragile state was no closer to fading than it had been in the night, thus Jihan had sent them on a different path to their destination. “He can’t return to that place,” he had told the carpenter. “Take him the long way ‘round so he won’t have to see it.”

Xiao had hidden his grief and obeyed without question, and coaxed Yeonshin into joining him for a walk with a smile on his tear-stained face.

Standing at the porch of the stronghold, a treacherous part of Haeseon began to wish he had gone with them.

“They’re gone,” Jihan said when they stepped through the gates. He did not let go of the hilt of his dagger at his waist, however, nor did the tension seep from his shoulders. “They must’ve left soon after you escaped with Yeonshin. Even Lowe isn’t stupid enough to stay behind and wait for two Cardinals to tear him in half.”

Haeseon nodded, shuddering. It felt wrong to be back within the confinements of the stronghold’s walls, even though there was no one left to keep him chained within. So peaceful was it that all that had happened in the fortress seemed like a terrible dream, a nightmare lingering to plague his conscious state.

He stayed close to Jihan’s side, although he did not touch him. He knew he would feel the simmer of the captain’s anger if he did, rippling beneath his skin, and he knew Jihan did not want him to take part of it now. Haeseon had already felt it all through the night; neither of them had slept a wink, one too frightened and one too tense with rage to rest. They had laid in silence in each other’s arms, pressed up as close as they could come, but they had said nothing, only stared into the darkness of the night and struggled to keep the hatred from their thoughts.

Haeseon still wanted Elyas Lowe to die, but he dreaded it now, simply out of worry for his beloved once the target of his rage would disappear. Undoubtedly, Jihan would turn it unto himself, and with Haeseon unable to as much as think Hisashi’s name without being overcome with grief and guilt, he feared he would not be able to properly comfort the captain in his inevitable despair.

How long will we mourn for? he thought ruefully and tucked his arms closer against his chest, shivering even within the many layers of furs Jun had made him wear. When will we stop losing our people?

Foregoing the alleyways between the rundown houses, the two crews made for the head building where Elyas and his men had taken residence. Without their bars, the main doors opened easily enough, but instead of entering, Talya turned to Haeseon and waited, as did the rest of her men.

He knew why they did it. After all, he was the only one to have stepped foot within the confinements of the fortress before. Brief as his stay had been and in spite of the urgency he’d been overcome with, Haeseon knew where they had been caged and he knew where Hisashi had died. Thus the lot of them looked to him and expected him to show them the way, a task that was more frightening that he could’ve fathomed.

In the face of their expectation, Haeseon faltered in his steps until he came to a halt halfway across the courtyard. His breath grew unsteady and his heart beat uncomfortably in his chest, as if he had ran too far too fast and stood on the verge of nausea. It wasn’t the fortress itself what scared him, but the thought of seeing Hisashi’s body again.

Upon noticing Haeseon no longer walked beside him, Jihan came to a halt and turned to look at him. His jaw remained set with tension and he still refused to let go of his dagger, but the sharpness of his eyes softened, as did his tone of voice. “Songbird,” he said. At once, breathing became an easier task. “Are you alright?”

Yes, Haeseon wanted to say, even though it would’ve been a lie. He wanted to reassure his beloved rather than be a cause for him to worry, but as he was then, Haeseon was not ready to be so strong once more. “No,” he said, cursing his quivering voice. “I’m not.”

Even in his state of tension, the look that crossed Jihan’s eyes was one of sympathy rather than impatience. Without paying heed to the northerners’ restlessness, he walked back to Haeseon’s side and coaxed him into unfolding his arms from his chest. “You don’t have to be here,” the captain told him. “If it’s too difficult for you—”

“I want to,” Haeseon interrupted, agitated, “but I keep thinking how I could—what if he’s—” He stopped to draw a quivering breath and closed his eyes, forcing himself to stop shaking. The thought of seeing Hisashi now was all but crippling, but he had to do it. He couldn’t run away now. “It’s difficult, but I want to come. For Hisashi, I want to.”

Even though Haeseon could see the captain’s own struggle to be calm as clearly as if it had been written all over his face, Jihan only nodded and gently took hold of Haeseon’s hand. “Don’t bear it all on your own, songbird,” he said quietly. “You don’t walk this path alone, you never will, so if it becomes too hard, let me bear some of it with you.”

His words brought to mind the argument they’d had before Haeseon had been taken and the burden he had kept from his beloved. It made him ache at the same time as it gave him bravery, and he squeezed Jihan’s hand, nodding. “Thank you,” he whispered and let his beloved lead his way inside the fortress.

When they stepped past the northerners, Talya drew back, her Blessing’s frame stiff and her eyes flickering from Haeseon to Jihan and then away to her own men. It had Haeseon feeling colder still; his friend had avoided him ever since his and Yeonshin’s escape, and while a part of him knew it was likely due to whatever had happened between her and Jihan, there was a voice in the back of his head that told him Talya despised him now, blaming him for what had happened to Refur.

It’s not the time, Haeseon thought and clutched tightly onto Jihan’s hand. It doesn’t matter now.

It took Haeseon a moment to recognise the path they took through the many hallways of the stronghold. After all, he had never made it as far as the front doors, going instead for a window somewhere down an unmarked corridore. When he finally did recognise where they were, the realisation brought with it the memories of what had happened in the fortress when he’d last been there.

Wordlessly, he lead Jihan and Talya’s crews towards the dining hall. On the way, they passed a corner where a splatter of blood had dried on the wall and floor, and Haeseon faltered in his steps upon the recollection of what he had done to the pirate they had encountered there.

“It’s alright,” Jihan murmured and drew him against his side. “You’re not alone, songbird.”

“I know,” Haeseon said and nodded in spite of how shrill his voice was. “I only—” He turned away from the blood, his stomach turning, and drew a quivering breath in attempt to calm himself. The grip he had on Jihan’s hand was bruisingly tight, but the captain said nothing of it. “I know.”

It didn’t take him long to find his way after that. Desperate as he had been to escape at the time, Haeseon still remembered what turns he had made and where he had to go. Thus he found himself standing in the hallway leading to the dining hall doors long before he could’ve prepared himself for what was to come.

“Here,” he said and pointed towards the double doors with a hand racked by tremors. “Through there, that’s where… in the dining hall. Hisashi, he—” Even now, he couldn’t make himself say it. “It happened there.”

Jihan nodded and gave Haeseon’s hand a reassuring squeeze before steering his steps down the hallway. While Haeseon followed with dread, the captain walked with determination and purpose, his expression hard as stone when he reached the doors and pushed them open.

The thought of seeing Hisashi’s dead body once more had been so overwhelming, Haeseon hadn’t even begin to consider the dread that would come from finding his corpse gone. When the light of the torches Talya’s men carried filled the room, there was not a soul in sight, neither living nor dead. The puddle of blood was still there, dried into the wooden floor next to the table, but the body had vanished as if by some spell.

“He was here,” Haeseon said, something akin to hysteria gripping at his lungs as he stared at the bloodied floor. “Hisashi, he was here, this is where he—where Lowe made Yeonshin—” His breath wouldn’t pass his lips, stuck in his lungs and choking him until he felt as cold as ice. The blood lay untouched, with no marks to suggest the swordsman’s body would’ve been moved, yet it was gone all the same. “Oh gods,” he croaked. “Oh gods, what if she—Hel, what if she did something? What if she took him away, what if she made him hers?”

Jihan said nothing. He did not move, hardly even to draw breath as he stared at the dark stains on the floor. It was as if he was attempting to make the blood reform into whom it had once belonged to with nothing but his gaze. For every second that passed without his desired result, he grew tenser still, until Haeseon might as well have been clutching onto the hand of a statue.

“Lowe can’t have made it far.” Startling, Haeseon turned to Talya, who had changed out of her Blessing’s form and into her own. She wore a fur-lined robe over her shoulders, given to her by one of her crew, and her face was unfamiliarly stiff as she, too, looked at the blood smeared across the floor. “There were tracks of many dozen men leading west from the stronghold’s back,” she said. “With so many men, it is impossible to move quickly. He plans to escape by sea, but we can catch him before he reaches the coast.”

Jihan showed no sign of having heard her, and she pressed her lips together for a moment before continuing. “Your brother sails your ship to the western coast,” she said, “as does my son. Together, your crew and Freyr can keep him stranded should we come too late.”

In his anguish, Haeseon might’ve missed the flare of silent rage that went through the captain’s body upon the mention of Talya’s son. For the briefest moment, Jihan’s hold on his hand turned all but harsh, but he eased it again before Haeseon could so much as look at him. He said nothing, but his jaw moved with words unspoken, and he still refused to look Talya’s way.

“They’ve taken Refur’s body as well,” she went on, unfazed by the captain’s silence. Her voice gave away her own tension with ease; it made her sound like a different person, as if the cheerful Northern Cardinal Haeseon had known had died alongside her crewman. “I knew it as soon as we came here. Even if they’d buried him, I would still be able to—I could still—”

She grew agitated, either with her own lack for words or by the truth of them. She dragged her fingers through her hair and sighed, and sent a look Jihan’s way. “We leave when you’re ready,” she said stiffly and made for the doors. “Don’t take too long.”

Her men went with her and left them in silence, one so heavy all Haeseon could hear was the sound of his own heart beating hard against his ribs. He wanted to comfort Jihan, he wanted it more than anything, but there was nothing he knew to say. After all, there was nothing he could say to comfort even himself. All he could do was to stare at the dried blood and breathe, a task that felt impossible on its own.

The longer he looked, the louder the sound of his heart became, until it was as if it was outside of him and not within, echoing like a distant drum.

When Jihan finally moved, he let go of Haeseon’s hand and walked closer to the dark stains, still refusing to turn away from it. He said nothing for a long moment, only looked, and then he went to his knees and placed his hands to the floor in front of him so he could bow as was right, lowering his head until his brow touched his knuckles.

He did not straighten up immediately, as one would, but held his bow for what felt like an eternity. His frame quivered and Haeseon knew his grief had slipped past the hardened mask he wore. It made it that much harder to keep his own sorrow at bay, so when Haeseon followed his beloved’s lead and went to his knees, he cried as soon as he bowed his head, tears spilling silently from his eyes.

Eventually, Jihan raised his head again, exhaling sharply as he sat upright and quickly wiped his cheeks for any evidence of the anguish that thrashed within him. He rose to his feet and bowed one more time, a curt nod of his head before he finally turned away. “Let’s go,” he said and offered Haeseon his hand to help him stand upright.

The chill of his voice filled Haeseon with a sudden rush of premonition. Jihan sounded resigned, as if there was only one thing that mattered to him now, regardless of what the cost would be. In the face of it, Haeseon grew distressed, and he held the captain back when he made for the doors. “Jihan,” he said, pleading. “I—I’m sorry.”

A deep frown marred Jihan’s brow, confusion seeping into the grimness that had overtaken him. He turned to face him and searched for his eyes when Haeseon cast them down, his thumb stroking along the back of Haeseon’s hand. “I’ve told you, songbird,” he said slowly, “this was not your fault. Not you nor Yeonshin’s.”

The way in which he spoke gave Haeseon warmth even in the cold that threatened to consume him from within. Jihan’s voice was kind and fierce with conviction, as if he truly couldn’t have fathomed a different truth, and Haeseon knew that even in his state of rage, the captain would not stand down should Haeseon ask for his reassurance.

The warmth, however, rose to his eyes rather than his chest, misplaced as it was. It was not what Haeseon had apologised for, so he shook his head to clear it and tried again. “I’m sorry for not telling you,” he said, speaking as bravely as he could. “About… about my ear.”

Even though their reunion had had them both in tears and wrapped tightly in one another’s embrace, they hadn’t spoken of what had made them both so miserable before the terrible events with Lowe. In the sleepless night, Haeseon had wanted to speak the words over and over again, but even though he knew Jihan had been awake, he hadn’t managed to bring himself to say it.

Upon the mention of their argument, a rush of tension returned to the captain’s frame and made him sigh, but he did not let go of Haeseon’s hand, and the gentleness of his voice remained the same. “Now is not the time, songbird,” he said.

It was as far from a dismissal as it could be, but even though Haeseon knew Jihan was right—they had far more pressing matters to see to now—he needed his beloved to understand, lest a time come when it would be too late. “I know,” he said, “but I don’t know when the right time will come, so I—I only—” He cast his gaze down onto their hands. “I really am sorry.”

With another sigh, Jihan freed himself from Haeseon’s grip so he could raise his hand to his cheek instead. “Look at me, songbird,” he murmured, thumb stroking the skin underneath his eye and coaxing him into raising his head. “I forgive you. We will speak of it again and we’ll do it properly, but I’ve already forgiven you. I don’t understand, not completely, but I’m not angry with you.” He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “I should never have been angry.”

“You should’ve,” Haeseon said at once, even as he stood on the verge of tears once more. Upon the captain’s spoken forgiveness, he felt as though he could’ve cried yet another lifetime’s worth of tears, but he held them at bay, knowing there would be a better time for it. He leaned into Jihan’s touch, his eyes slipping shut for a moment. “I would’ve been, had I been you.”

Had their situation not been so cruel, Jihan might’ve smiled; his lips twitched in the corner, but all he managed was a grimace. “Once this is over,” he said, “once Elyas Lowe is dead and Hisashi has been given his peace, we’ll speak.” He leaned close and pressed his lips against Haeseon’s cheek, lingering for a moment as if he craved his warmth and the comfort it gave him. When he pulled away, his eyes were glistening in the dim light of the hall. “We’ll make it right.”

His promise gave Haeseon strength, relieved to know that the captain, in spite of his grief, still had the sense to think beyond the revenge that held him together now. It gave Haeseon hope and he nodded, some of the cold in him fading. “Yes,” he agreed, his voice for once unwavering.

When they turned to leave, a dull luster caught Haeseon’s gaze from underneath the dining table. He strained his eyes to see it for what it was, and when he recognised it, it was with no small amount of pain. It was the knife with which Yeonshin had lunged at Elyas Lowe, the knife the Western Cardinal had forced the surgeon to turn on Haeseon.

It was the dagger that had killed Hisashi, its blade still stained red.

“Jihan,” he said, so quietly it was a wonder the captain heard him at all. Without another word, Haeseon let go of Jihan’s hand and went to where the knife lay. He took care to not step on the bloodied floor and knelt to take the blade in his hands. “This…”

He didn’t need to say the words. As soon as the captain saw the weapon, the look in his eyes grew all but helpless, as if the sight of it hurt more than any damage the knife could ever have done. “Give it to me,” he said and raised his hand to take it. “I will bring it to that son of a bitch and use it to open his throat.”

His words made Haeseon ache, but he passed over the blade without hesitating; even he could see the twisted sense of justice the act would give and the honour it would bring Hisashi in his death. Jihan held the dagger reverently in his hands, stroking the blade and gritting his teeth when a few flakes of dried blood came loose and fell to the floor.

As if the sight gave him strength, the captain nodded and shoved the blade through the belt at his waist to keep it next to his own daggers. He said nothing of it, only offered Haeseon his hand once more before they left the stronghold to seek vengeance on he who had killed their beloved crewmate.

With Talya leading their way in her Blessing’s form, they ventured out into the endless snows of the North with nothing to guide their way than tracks half faded. There was nothing to be seen no matter where Haeseon looked, neither trees nor life of any kind, only fields of white spreading every which way, the horizon melding into the sky’s dull colour.

The sun hid behind thick clouds and made it impossible to tell how much time passed as they walked, but to Haeseon, who hadn’t been able to rest for days, the trek was exhausting. Trudging through the snow had his muscles screaming in protest, begging for a break, but the crews pushed on without pause, intent on reaching the coast before their mark could slip away.

The farther they strayed into the wilderness, the more fiercely Haeseon wished he’d still had his bow. As he was now, he went weaponless save for the dagger Jihan had convinced him to carry even though he didn’t know how to properly wield one. The captain had also made him swear to stay out of the battle, unarmed as he was, a task Haeseon was eager to comply with after all that had happened and all that he’d done.

All he wanted was peace, both for the living and the dead.

Hours had had time to pass when the silence in the air was torn asunder by the deafening sound of cannonfire and stone cracking open by force. It came like thunder out of clear skies and had Haeseon startling so violently he lost his balance and went to his knees in the snow, his heart about to leap out of his chest in terror at the sudden noise. All around him, the northerners drew their weapons and shouted at one another in strange words, every last one of them readying themselves for the battle to come.

“Lowe and his crew must’ve reached the coast,” Jihan hissed as he pulled Haeseon back onto his feet, one dagger drawn and ready in his grip. “His ship has been seized, so it can’t be he who—fuck!”

The rest of his words were drowned in another spray of cannonfire, one so harsh it made the very ground beneath them rattle. As if the sound was a drum of battle, Talya emitted a commanding snarl and picked up her speed, charing easily through the snow and leading her crew towards the source of the sound. Haeseon and Jihan followed as best they could, out of breath as they struggled to climb up the last hill standing between them and what would be their scene of battle.

When they finally reached the top of it, Haeseon’s eyes grew wide at the sight spreading out before them. They had reached the coast, the sea stretching vast towards the horizon. The beach was low and sloped into the ocean, but its surface had been split open over and over, spraying chunks of hard stone ashore at those who attempted to approach the sea.

Elyas Lowe was truly stranded, kept from the sea by the August and Freyr’s vessel. Like Talya had said, the Western Cardinal’s crew held several dozen of men and women, but they were powerless without a ship. Every time one of them drew near the beach, one of the two pirate ships fired a spray to drive them back as far as the cannons would reach.

Far behind the August, a third vessel stood waiting at sea, unmoving. It was unfamiliar to Haeseon, but its black sails spoke volumes of what kind of man was meant to captain it. It had come to take Elyas Lowe out to sea, but with two ships standing in its way, one a Cardinal’s vessel, the other a Cardinal’s son’s, it did not approach for fear of being sunk.

“He can’t return to the sea,” Haeseon whispered. Even though the man he spoke of was one he hated with all his being, the notion made him ache all the same; for a pirate to be kept from his home was cruel, even if that cruelty was deserved.

“Good.” Jihan’s voice was cold as ice, promising nothing but pain and death. “He has no right to a death at sea,” he said harshly. Only now, he let go of Haeseon’s hand for the sake of pulling the bloodied knife from his belt. “He’s a pirate no longer, but a dead man running from the fate he chose for himself. His last moments will be on land, where he holds no power or command, and I,” he rammed the hilt of the dagger against his own chest, the blade of it rippling out of shape by Jihan’s Blessing’s touch, “I’ll make him repay Hisashi’s death a thousand times over, until nothing remains of him but blood and bone!”

-

in before everything goes to shit aYY—

so.

when jihan went to his knees and bowed before the spot where hisashi died.

i done burst into tears i did, like holy sHET did that hit me where it hurts

:(

one day i swear they'll be happy again, i'll make them be happy again if it so kills me uGH HONESTLY CAN THEY JUST HECK OFF FROM THE NORTH AND BACK HOME AT LEAST IN THE EAST THEY ONLY HAVE TO DEAL WITH SON JUKAN THE LI'L BITCH WITH LINGERING HYUNG ISSUES >:T

GOD there are so many things just waiting to blow up and ruin everything and I JUST—THEY HAVEN'T EVEN DICKED DOWN YET OH MY GOD THIS REALLY IS SAD

and yay. freyr's back. i did so miss him. yay. good to see you again freyr. welcome back freyr. we sure did miss you freyr. don't fuck up again freyr.

also...... qasim still existsjhsjhd i just gotta say that for my own sake because he's being about as useful as a poorly refrigerated slice of fish right about now and i gotta do something about it >:T

next week is midterm week at my uni so there's a slight chance i might push back the chapter until friday, but i'll do my best to get it to you on time!!

HANG ONTO YOUR PANTS UNTIL NEXT WEEK AND PRAY THAT BASTARD LOWE GETS WHAT HE DESERVES


	28. chapter 27 - East and West

midterms are DONE and i'm HYPED TO ALL HECK FOR THIS CHAPTER omg prepare for hURT but like POWERFUL HURT and TWISTEDNESS UGH

MOOSIC

WHEN JIHAN SAYS “Go, songbird. Now.” YOU GOTTA PLAY THIS SONG RIGHT HERE BECAUSE IT’S JUST PERFECT FOR THIS AHHHHHHHH—

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Haeseon’s ears were ringing, a high-pitched sound carrying without pause within his good ear as he looked at Elyas Lowe. The Western Cardinal hadn’t noticed them yet, focused as he was on finding a path to the ship that awaited him out at sea past the two that stood in his way. His voice was loud and laced with frustration when he barked commands at his men, likely demanding an answer from them, a clue as to how they would escape their predicament.

He’s frightened, a small voice whispered in the back of Haeseon’s head. He knows he doesn’t have much time now. His breath sat thick in his throat, kept there by the hatred that came to him from the mere sight of the man who had forced Yeonshin’s hand to kill Hisashi.

Haeseon despised Elyas Lowe, and soon he would be dead. Good, he thought numbly, and the ringing in his ear grew stronger.

“Songbird.”

He startled out of his grim musings and turned to Jihan, whose eyes were cold and hard as stone as they gazed upon whom he had promised to kill. “Call our crew to shore,” the captain said. The chill claimed his voice as well and made him sound like a stranger; even in battle, Jihan’s commands had always borne a familiarity. Now, with his vengeance within reach, it was as if he was no longer the Black Fox at all, but a twisted shadow of who he was supposed to be. “They can’t hear me from here.”

Beside him, Talya and the northerners had grown impatient; Jihan’s command had barely left his lips when the Northern Cardinal bounded forward several leaps and emitted a deafening roar, her Blessing’s form towering over the stranded crew even from halfway up the hill they had climbed. “Hurry,” Jihan said through gritted teeth at the same time as the Western Cardinal and all his men finally turned their way.

For all the severity of his voice, Haeseon was too numb to do as told before Elyas overcome the shock of their sudden appearance, and when he raised his voice, Haeseon stiffened further still, his grip on Jihan’s hand tightening into a bruising hold out of instinct alone.

“Choi Jihan,” the Western Cardinal spat, a smile twisting his face even amidst the hopelessness of his position. He looked from Jihan to Talya, who stood hulking in the snow in her Blessing’s form, posed for attack. “And Talya Sabelsdottír. Of course, the two of you would come together. I said it once, did I not? That the Northern Tiger would spread her legs to gain the East’s favour.”

His eyes fell on Haeseon and he emitted a harsh bark of laughter. “I would’ve imagined you’d despise me after what happened during our feast, little bird,” he crowed, “but you’ve brought me the most wonderful gift instead. Your beloved fox and your pet tiger, guided so willingly to their deaths.”

Haeseon winced as if he’d been struck and Jihan’s hand gave a jerk towards his own body, pulling Haeseon more firmly against his side. “He’s already dead,” he said, so quietly the Western Cardinal would not hear. “Alone, he’s nothing. His words mean nothing now.”

In spite of his dismissive words, the captain’s own rage was palpable, as if it burst from his skin and seeped into the air around him. It was frightening; no matter how Haeseon tried to draw comfort from what he said, Jihan’s words only fed the dread of what was to come.

“The Black Fox comes without his crew,” the Western Cardinal went on, casting a glance over his shoulder and at the black-painted ship waiting some ways off the shore. “And the Northern Tiger goes without a ship to carry her. Two Cardinals you may be, but my men outnumber you two to one with ease. Oh,” he uttered with mock surprise when he turned back again, leaning this way and that, “and I don’t see your precious archer anywhere in your midst. Did you leave him behind to rot in the stronghold?”

While he tutted in disapproval, Talya’s frame grew taut, the continuous snarl ceasing to roll past her bared teeth. In her Blessing’s state of muteness, Qasim spoke instead, and his voice reminded Haeseon of when he had found the August’s crew in Shanghai and asked for their help. “What are you talking about?” he asked loudly. His hand hovered close to the mane at Talya’s neck, as if he was readying himself to grab hold of it should he need to. “The fortress was empty. You left no one in your wake.”

The Western Cardinal sighed, as if the question itself was exasperating to him. “Heartless,” he said as if in lament. He did not look at Qasim or even Talya, but turned away instead to bemoan his feigned sorrows, as if he was an actor in a play of theatre. “So heartless, she is, our Northern Cardinal. To think she wouldn’t even make the effort to find her man who so bravely sacrificed himself to save the Black Fox’s little bird and his king’s surgeon.” He made a show of clutching the fine garb over his chest, yet failed to hide his sardonic smile. “I will mourn for him.”

A ripple went through Talya’s body and Qasim was quick to put his hand on her back, as if he would be capable of restraining her when her patience would finally run dry. “He lies,” he said with a strange urgency to his voice. “He wouldn’t goad you unless he wanted you to blindly charge his way. Don’t do what he expects you to.”

“Has the North turned away from those who serve her so faithfully?” Elyas wondered aloud and threw a spiteful look Haeseon’s way. “Has she thrown away her own kind in favour of the Black Fox’s pretty, pretty little bird? Oh, it he had been the one to remain in the fortress, I know Sabelsdottír wouldn’t have left a stone unturned to find him, but alas—”

Talya snarled, her body lowering itself towards the ground as if she was about to break into a dash. “Don’t,” Qasim warned.

“—poor Refur was left behind.” The Western Cardinal’s smirk grew brighter still, eyes flickering between Talya and Jihan. “The flames will hurt,” he sing-songed and raised his arms to the sides. “Alone, he will burn, while his captain fights the Black Fox’s battles for him.”

“What flames?” Qasim asked, his voice wavering in the face of his captain’s mounting rage. Gone was his own careless mirth and spitefulness; around his hands, the air stirred and pulsed, as if he was preparing to use his Blessing if it meant to keep Talya from doing something she would regret. “If you’re going to spout nonsense—

“Should I tell you?” Elyas mused with a cackle. He inclined his head in a curious manner, as if he wasn’t standing on the brink of battle. Around him, his men had drawn their weapons and assumed their stance; one of them had taken the form of a hound, nearly as big as Talya, with ragged fur and saliva dripping from its maw. “Should I tell you now, or wait for you to realise it on your own?”

“He’s playing for time,” Jihan said before Qasim could lose any more of his temper. He reached within his robes, frantic in his search. “He knows the cannons won’t fire now that we’ve come. He’s waiting for something to—”

Another spray of cannonfire drowned the rest of his words, but neither the August nor Freyr’s ship had fired a single round. The sound echoed from someways far in the direction whence they’d come, carried across the bare tundra they had crossed. From the hill upon which they stood, the flat snows of Iceland gave them leagues of farsight, so when Haeseon turned to look for the source of the cannonfire, he found it with ease, his heart sinking like a stone in his chest.

The fortress where he had been imprisoned stood aflame, its walls and towers broken beyond repair. The fire rose high and its smoke even higher, red and black moulding together and casting a terrible contrast against the snow. It burned like the flames of hell had risen to claim it, feeding on every piece of debris it could reach.

“May Hel save his soul from the flames,” Elyas said with mirth and loathing.

From the smoke rose an enormous figure, tall and massive and moving through the fires as if it couldn’t feel the white-hot burn of them. Its advance was slow and all but graceful, wholly unperturbed by the charred debris or even the land itself. The silhouette of it was shrouded in fire and smoke, yet it did not deter its approach.

When its long bow emerged from the confinements of the smoke, Haeseon knew it for what it was at once. “Gods,” he whispered, his hands trembling where he clutched onto his beloved’s arm. “Oh gods, Jihan, that—it’s a ship.”

The vessel was larger than the August and Freyr’s ship combined, wide and tall with six masts, two standing side by side at the bow, quarterdeck, and rear. Its sails were torn and hung loose from the yards, its hull lined with three rows of gunports, and for its figurehead, a woman arched out of the dark wood, a heart in her hand and her chest torn wide open.

The ship sailed through the air itself, its hull licked by the flames rising several meters off the burning stronghold.

“Lady death is coming,” Elyas crowed, beyond himself with exhilaration. “She has come for what is hers, and she won’t leave until she has it.”

While the northerners of Talya’s crew exclaimed and shouted in their shock, Jihan turned back to the Western Cardinal without a word. From the confinements of his robes, he drew one of Yeonshin’s pistols and took aim at Elyas’ crew in an all but haphazard manner, as if he truly did not care who he would hit—if anyone at all—and pulled the trigger.

The crack of the firearm was deafening in the silence left by the sight of Hel’s vessel, as was the guttural sound that rose from one of Elyas’ men’s throat when the bullet found its mark. It dug into the side of his face and shattered his jaw, and he fell to his knees with a horrible cry, thick with blood.

“Go, songbird,” Jihan said harshly and threw the pistol to the ground at the same time as Talya and her northerners began their charge and the Western Cardinal sent forth his men. “now.”

Nodding, Haeseon took his hybrid form, managing a shrill, “Be careful,” before taking flight. He rose far above what would be their battlefield and filled his lungs with air, and just as the three crews clashed, he cried out in a harrowing voice that was not his own, the call of the Canary summoning their men to battle.

At once, the August jarred forward on the sea, its cannons ceasing their fire as it turned and made for the shore. Freyr's ship stayed where it had been, resuming its fire when Elyas and the few men lingering to protect him attempted another approach to the beach. The Western Cardinal teetered on the edge of the cannons’ reach, his smirk hardening as he watched the majority of his crew clash with Talya’s.

“Haesae!” 

From so high in the air, Haeseon heard Seunggi’s voice even over the sounds of battle rising from beneath. With a fretful glance down at where Jihan was mercilessly tearing through the western pirates with his daggers, he took off towards the August as fast as his wings could carry him. The quartermaster waved up at him from the quarterdeck, leaning out so far he would’ve fallen into the sea if not for Daewon clutching to his robes.

Haeseon dove and landed clumsily by their side, stumbling right into Seunggi’s arms. “Haesae, you’re alright, you—”

“Hel’s coming,” Haeseon interrupted him, his voice high-pitched and frantic as he struggled to stand upright. “Hel’s on her way, her ship, she—it’s sailing through the air, we have to escape or she’ll kill us all!”

“What are you talking about?” the first mate asked, but Seunggi hushed him and placed his hands on Haeseon’s shoulders, looking between his eyes as if attempting to see into his thoughts. His worry was clear as day, as was his relief to find him unharmed, but upon Haeseon’s distress, he did what Haeseon needed him to.

“How long do we have?” he asked briskly and leaned back, swaying in his attempts to favour his broken leg.

“I don’t know,” Haeseon said and threw a look over his shoulder. Hel’s vessel was not visible over the hill yet, but it couldn’t have been long until she would arrive. “We have to be ready to sail away, but Jihan won’t come until Elyas has died.”

“Then we’ll carve a path for him,” Daewon said and turned to shout commands at the pirates manning the cannons. “I’ll take a few men ashore to bring down those Lowe keeps around him for security. Once Jihan has had his fill, we’ll escape.”

A terrible ache settled in Haeseon’s bones when he realised neither the first mate nor Seunggi, nor anyone aboard the ship knew why their captain would refuse to come. None of them knew of Hisashi’s death and the part the Western Cardinal had played in it, and even though he knew he would have to tell them, he couldn’t bring himself to do it now, when dread raged within his chest.

Instead, he looked to Seunggi and took hold of his arms to help him stand. “What can I do, Gi?” he asked. The flight to the ship had cost him little, yet he couldn’t calm his breath. “I don’t know what—tell me what to do.”

The quartermaster’s brow knitted into a tight frown behind his mask. His good eye flickered all over his face, and although he raised his hands to touch Haeseon again, he hesitated this time, as if he feared he might’ve shattered from it. “Haesae,” he said slowly and pressed his hand against Haeseon’s cheek. Only when he brushed his thumb over the skin beneath Haeseon’s eye did he realise he was on the verge of shedding tears, either out of fear or worry, or out of sorrow for Hisashi’s memory. “Haesae, what happened to you?”

Haeseon shook his head and rubbed at his eyes to rid himself of the tears before they could fall. He did not know what to say, what he should’ve said; the sounds of battle coming from the shore only served to agitate him further, pouring oil unto the ache burning in his chest.

A hand on his shoulder had him jerking away, startled, until he realised it was Lucya who had touched him. Her eyes grew wide upon his reaction, but in the urgency of battle, she was quick to recover and raised her hand to point towards the crow’s nest. In her hand, she held her crossbow, her quiver tied around her waist, and Haeseon knew what it was she was asking for.

“Yes,” he said and called on his Blessing’s wings once more before leaning forward a bit so it would be easier for her to get a proper hold around his shoulders. She favoured her left leg and Haeseon did as well, struggling to fly as calmly as he could to not jar the sniper too much and cause her pain.

He could feel Seunggi’s worry and he knew he would have to face it, but now was not the time.

The pirate in the crow’s nest climbed out to give them space when they reached the top of the mast. As carefully as he knew how, Haeseon set Lucya down and landed beside her to keep her steady while the ship rocked on the waves it crossed to the shore. The sharpshooter wasted no time on settling, instead drawing a bolt from her quiver and stringing it into her crossbow.

She raised the weapon to her eye’s level and took aim, still as stone as she waited to find the proper aim. When she did, she fired without fanfare, silent as ever as the bolt shot through the air and hit one of the pirates standing by Elyas in the throat. She did not hesitate to load another and launch it within only a matter of seconds, the short arrow catching another one of the pirates in the knee.

When she drew a third bolt, she nudged Haeseon in the chest and spoke, nodding down towards the deck, where Daewon was calling men over to one of the dinghies, ready to go ashore. Haeseon parted his lips and closed them again when no words came to him, and let go of Lucya to return to Seunggi’s side.

“Sabelsdottír and her men will return with us,” the first mate said when he landed. “Unless her son will decide to get off his arse and join the battle.” Had the situation been less dire, he might’ve scoffed at his own words, but as it were, he only curled his lips into a grimace and moved to follow his crewman into the small vessel. “Keep us as close to the shore as you can without catching in the reefs,” he called over to the helmsman. “We can’t drop anchor now, so—

“Sir!”

Daewon halted upon the call with one foot already in the dinghy and craned his head up towards the crow’s nest, where the pirate who had manned it leaned out next to Lucya and pointed at something far to their right. “Jun, Yeonshin, and Xiao are coming our way from the south!” he shouted, a spyglass pressed against his eye.

“Jun—what?”

The first mate blanched in confusion, one Haeseon was quick to mend as best he could. “Jihan sent them the long way ‘round,” he said urgently. “Yeonshin is sick. He can’t fight and he shouldn’t see Lowe, he—” His breath stacked in his throat and he shook his head. “I’ll go to them and tell Jun to bring him here. Jihan will need Xiao in the battle.”

He took off before without waiting for a reply, beating his wings hard to fly as fast as he could. The air was still for once, and a good thing too; his Blessing might’ve recovered, in part at least, but Haeseon had grown weak in the months he’d gone without flying. He was exhausted already and would likely have been thrown out of the skies had he braved another storm.

The three were easy to find, the fur of Xiao’s Blessing’s form standing out against the white snow of the shore some hundred meters from the battlefield. The carpenter carried Yeonshin on his back; even from a distance, Haeseon could tell the surgeon was cowering, his arms and shoulders drawn tightly against his chest as if the very world around him made him afraid.

“Jun!” Haeseon cried and dove to land in front of them. The cook startled, as did Xiao, but Haeseon didn’t grant them the time to reprimand him or even ask a single question. “The battle has begun,” he said and moved to help Yeonshin dismount from the carpenter’s back. “Hel is on the way, and we have to get to Lowe before she can.” He turned to Xiao. “They need your help to win this battle.”

It was all he needed to say. The carpenter emitted a gruff noise and nodded his great head, and then he was off, bounding towards the battlefield without looking back.

“Canary,” Jun began, but Haeseon interrupted him.

“Daewon took a dinghy to shore,” he said quickly. “Take Yeonshin there and board the August as fast as you can, and be ready to cast off as soon as Elyas has died.”

“Yes,” the cook said and secured Yeonshin’s arm around his shoulders, “but—”

Haeseon cut him off again. “I’m sorry, Jun,” he said, already moving backwards. “Everyone is fighting, and I can’t—I have to go.”

He took to the skies, sick with worry for Jihan and the others. Amidst the chaos of the battle, it was impossible to tell who was whom, aside from Talya, who stood out with ease as she took on pirate after pirate, each of them falling to her vicious strength. The only one Haeseon recognised was Elyas, who had yet to join the fray at all. He lingered at the outskirts of it, flanked by those he’d chosen to keep him safe.

Haeseon looked to the East, the dread in him rising at the sight of Hel’s ship drawing ever nearer. The vessel moved slowly through the air, as if it cost a great effort to keep it airborne, but its approach was steady and the sheer size of it had Haeseon’s stomach twisting; surely as many as three hundred men could crew such a ship.

If they land, he began, yet made a conscious effort to leave the thought unfinished. He did not want to imagine it, not now, when they were so close to the justice they had sworn to give Hisashi.

When Haeseon looked to the battlefield again, Daewon and the men from the August had joined the fray, as had Xiao. Foregoing the crews’ fighting, they went for Elyas and engaged his guards instead, forcing them away from their captain to leave him vulnerable to attack. The Western Cardinal realised it as well; he looked nervous then, turning this way and that as if he was searching for something to hide behind.

Or something to use as his shield. 

Every cell in Haeseon’s body flared with alarm as he watched Elyas turn his eyes on Xiao, who stood on his hind legs, towering over his opponent and striking at him with his humongous paws. His back faced the Western Cardinal and so he was blind to his approach, unaware even when the pirate captain came to stand within arm’s reach.

Jihan had told him to stay out of the battle, unarmed as he was, but as soon as Elyas’ hand found Xiao and made him halt, Haeseon folded his wings tightly against his body and dove, the cold air like knives against his face. His ceased his descent only when he was a matter of feet away from the Western Cardinal, spreading his wings wide to break his fall, and without allowing the man more time than to gasp, Haeseon lashed out against his arm.

He curled one talon around Elyas upper arm and one around his lower, and with all the strength he could muster, he twisted his body in the air, letting his weight fall onto his grip until the Western Cardinal’s arm broke at the elbow with a sickening crack.

Haeseon released his hold and fell into the snow at the same time as Elyas cried out in agony, his hand falling limp from Xiao’s form. In an instant, the carpenter whirled around and raised one of his great paws, using the momentum of his turn to ram it into the Cardinal’s shoulder. The force of the blow threw him back into the snow and shoved the air out of his lungs, the whole of his arm rendered useless as the bone broke out of its socket.

Xiao might’ve followed and done Elyas far worse, but two of the western pirates came rushing at him to defend their captain. One of them swung a bludgeon against the carpenter’s ribs and the other came at him with twin swords, and they followed after him when Xiao retreated, drawing them away from where Haeseon lay in the snow.

Numbed as he was by what he had done, he did not think to rise until he saw Elyas do it, struggling to push himself even onto his knees. The Cardinal was wheezing with pain, his good hand clutching his battered shoulder; when he managed to stand at last, he swayed where he stood, his sense of balance thrown off by the strike he had taken.

He turned on Haeseon, who was quick to scramble to his feet. The fear he bore for Elyas Lowe came rushing to his chest, but it was far weaker than his hatred.

“You,” Elyas spat through gritted teeth. His once fine garb hung in rags around his slumping frame. “You, what the fuck is it about you, little bird? You shouldn’t be alive. She told me, Hel told me you should’ve died again and again, but you’re—you just won’t—”

“You told me you would break every bone in my arms,” Haeseon said shrilly, his feathers standing sharp and on edge. The Western Cardinal was taller than him, but with his broken form, Haeseon was the one to tower over him. “I told you I would hurt you. I told you.”

The noise Elyas emitted could’ve been either a hiss or a chuckle. “I should’ve killed you,” he said and took an unsteady step closer. “I told Hel to tear the life from your bones when she was in that room with you, but no, she wanted to see, just like everyone else, she wanted to see what was so fucking precious about the little bird!”

When he came too close, Haeseon moved back several paces, until he had reassumed the prior distance between them. The Cardinal laughed at him for it, but he did not care. “Why are you running away?” Elyas asked with a maniacal titter. “You said you’d hurt me, didn’t you? Or,” he barked out a disdainful sound, “are you hesitating to try and kill me? Is the Ocean’s Harpy still too pure to try and take someone’s life?”

“I’m not pure,” Haeseon said, “but I don’t want to kill you. Not just you, but anyone. Death frightens me, whether it’s yours or mine, so I won’t kill you. But,” his voice quivered when he thought of Hisashi, “I do want you to die.”

Elyas scoffed. “That makes you—”

“A hypocrite.” The fight Haeseon had had with Hisashi so many months ago after they’d sacked a stronghold south of Shanghai came to his mind now, when it was least welcome. “A coward,” he said as firmly as he could. “Call me what you will. I know what I am, and you can’t hurt me with it.”

“How brave you are,” the Cardinal spat with venom in his voice. “So, what, do you think yourself untouchable now? Do you imagine yourself beyond hurt because you know who you are?” The laughter that spilled from his lips was hollow and lack of glee. “Would you say the same thing if you were dragged into that alley again, little bird? If your beloved fox wouldn’t come save you, do you think you’d be able to cling to that courage?”

His words had Haeseon’s stomach curling with nausea, his skin prickling underneath his feathers, but he refused to let it show. All he did was look and refuse to give Elyas what he wanted from him.

“You’re every bit as proud as Choi fucking Jihan,” the Western Cardinal said, “but unlike him, you have no power. You have nothing, no matter what Sabelsdottír or Hel or any of them think, the whole of you exist only because the Black Fox allowed it, and you will never—”

The rest of his words were lost in a startled gasp as he staggered forward, shoved off balance by a force ramming against the back of his head. He fell to his knees, the whole of his body giving in to the wave of numbness the strike sent coursing through his body. He might’ve slumped into the snow, but a hand took hold of his hair and gave a harsh tug, until his spine curled and he fell onto his back.

The very first sign of fear flashed across the Western Cardinal’s face upon the sight of Jihan standing above him, bloodied from those he’d had to kill to reach so far. The knife the captain clutched in his hand was the one Yeonshin had been forced to turn on Hisashi, and the look in his eyes still promised all the same things it had before the battle had began.

“Ch-Choi Jihan,” Elyas said and attempted a smirk, although the muscles of his face betrayed him in favour of his dread. “Look at you, bloodsoaked and disgraced by battle. What will you do?” Even now, all he could do was taunt and hope it would change the fate he had carved into stone. “Will you kill me? In f-front of your precious little bird?”

Jihan said nothing. Not when he stepped over the Western Cardinal’s body nor when he pressed the heel of his boot against Elyas’ chest when he attempted to rise. Jihan said nothing when he straddled his chest, not even when Elyas lashed out with his good hand and took hold of Jihan’s left, grinning in triumph.

The Cardinal’s mirth lasted only for the briefest of moments, until he realised the limb he’d grabbed onto was a prosthesis. It dawned on him slowly, the fact that his Blessing could not possess the inanimate, even if it was attached to someone living. There was nothing he could do now, not when Jihan turned his own grip on Elyas’ arm and shoved it into the ground, his other laying broken and battered next to his body.

When Jihan finally spoke, it was as he pressed the blade of Yeonshin’s knife against his throat. “This will be a lesson,” he said, his voice trembling with rage, “for the next Cardinal of the West. I hope they will be someone who understands that laying a hand on one of mine will end in nothing but death, both for the captain and the whole of their crew.”

“Don’t,” Elyas croaked, eyes wide with dread. “Don’t, please, just—”

Jihan did not wait to listen to him beg. He tightened his grip on the knife, the stiff mask of his face breaking into a snarl as he pushed the blade deep and carved the Western Cardinal’s throat open from ear to ear. His blood spilled warm onto the snow and he gurgled and gasped, his hand twitching in Jihan’s grip. He kicked with his legs, but it was futile; he could not throw Jihan off of him, and even if he could’ve, no one could’ve saved him then.

Haeseon watched, his chest hollow, until Elyas Lowe ceased his struggle and grew still.

It’s done, he thought and closed his eyes. He was calm now, even though he knew his anguish would return as soon as they were out of harm’s way. He’s dead. He’s dead, Hisashi. He’s dead.

A rustle of cloth made him look up again, to where Jihan was still hunched over Elyas’ body. The captain released his arm and moved the bloodied knife to his prosthetic hand so he could use his right one to tug down Elyas’ sleeve. He took hold of his bare wrist, and then he waited, eyes unblinking as he stared down at the Western Cardinal.

A chill the likes of which Haeseon had never felt crashed hard against his chest when the western captain’s fingers twitched and his eyes flew open. “Gods,” Haeseon cried out and reeled back, crippled by terror as he watched Elyas attempt to rise, pushing against Jihan’s grip. “Oh gods, he—”

Jihan shoved the knife into the Cardinal’s chest this time, forcing it to cleave through his collarbones and cut open the top of his chest. Elyas made no sound this time, not when he slumped back against the snow, dead, only to open his eyes once more a mere moment later.

It was a horrifying thing to see. The Western Cardinal refused to die no matter how many times Jihan took the knife on him. He rose every time, and Haeseon dreaded the man had struck some deal with Hel and been granted the gift of immortality for as long as their alliance would last. The thought made him want to scream, if only for how nauseating it was.

Only when his terror ceased to claw at him like a starved beast did Haeseon realise it couldn’t be so. Even though Elyas rose again and again, his eyes never looked at anything, even Jihan, and he did not breathe. He didn’t cry out when he was killed—he did not so much as jerk in shock of his body being cut into—and the flow of blood was slower for every wound the captain carved into his body.

With horror, Haeseon realised it was Jihan who made him move. The captain’s Blessing of Animation could not force the hand of living things, but Elyas Lowe was no longer living. He was dead, but Jihan made him move as if there had still been life in him so he could kill him, again and again and again.

Rage twisted the captain’s face and tears burned red marks into his cheeks, his breath hitching every time he pushed the knife into Elyas’ body. The anguish he had buried within him was bursting from him now, in the most horrible way it could.

“Jihan,” Haeseon whispered when he found his voice, weak as it was in the face of what was happening. The whole of him was trembling and he wished more than anything that it was a terrible dream, but when the captain did not stop, Haeseon forced himself to break out of his state of petrification. “Jihan!”

He threw himself onto his knees next to his beloved and took hold of his arm to stop him, putting all his might into it when Jihan attempted to shake him off. “Jihan, stop it,” he pleaded with tears spilling from his eyes. “Please, you’re hurting yourself, you’re not—please, Jihan, stop.”

The captain made a last, weak attempt to break free before he succumbed to the agony that plagued him. His body lost its strength and he allowed himself to be dragged off of Elyas’ body and into Haeseon’s embrace, quivering like a leaf. “He killed Hisashi,” Jihan croaked, a sob racking his frame. The knife fell from his grip and he buried his face in his hands, smearing blood across his skin. “He killed him, songbird, he fucking killed him!”

“I know,” Haeseon said thickly and pulled him as tightly against his chest as he could. The horror in him burned like fire, as did the ache he shared with his beloved, but he did his utmost to be strong for Jihan now, as he had been time and time again. “And now he’s dead. He’s dead, Jihan, he can’t kill anyone anymore.”

The captain’s cries were lost in the chorus of screams that rose from those that still remained on the battlefield. Haeseon turned as best he could where he lay in the snow, his heart sinking to the pit of his stomach at the sight of Hel’s enormous ship emerging from beyond the hill. The people aboard it cheered and laughed at the sight of the three battered crews, hooting with glee at how easy their task had been made for them.

Above the vessel’s figurehead stood a woman far too familiar, one that had Haeseon’s chest curling with fear. We have to run, he thought and clutched onto his beloved. We have to run, lest we all join the dead in their unrest.

-

so.

yeah, um, that’s a thing, um, a thing that jihan’s blessing can do, like…… a dead body is technically an inanimate thing, so, um, yeah, if he wants to, he can use his blessing to make corpses move like puppets.

he just doesn't.

usually.

because that's twisted.

um.

yeah.

this book really is lovely like that.

._.

um bUT WHO CARES HAESEON BROKE HIS ARM IN HALF HE LITERALLY SNAPPED HIS ARM IN HALF AFTER ELYAS HAD TOLD HIM HE COULD BREAK HIS WINGS i feel like i shouldn't be this happy about violence bUT

LONG LIVE THE SONGBIRD

also fuck everyone who makes jihan cry >:(

jshjsdsd a smol, uh, thing to remember just in case you feel like elyas’ “performance” in this battle was underwhelming; it’s been said a few times throughout this book that elyas is pretty much useless, like he used to be a great captain, but now all he cares about is maintaining his wealth, aka being a snobby rich boy who’d rather invest in some bodyguards than actual prowess.

iric ried points this out at one point (either him or jihanjshdjhs i'm not sure), that while sure, elyas can be clever, he’s actually fairly weak and thus wouldn’t “bite off more than he can chew”. well, that’s kinda what he ended up doing; he drew too much comfort from being allied with hel and let it get to his head, and so…… wELP

can’t say i’m sad to see him go

also yeah hel has a big-ass flying ship what else is knew ain't like nothing's gonna surprise me anymore (i say as the author) might as well give her a unicorn to ride to battle

THEY STILL GOTTA (try to) ESCAPE THO SO WE AIN'T OUTTA THE FIRES YET HOO BOI

NEXT WEEK

RIP


	29. chapter 28 - The Hell in Between

when i tell you i screamed throughout writing this whole chapter............. bRACE YOURSELVES

also game of thrones came through with that perfect soundtrack for the second half of this chapter, just oOF *chef's kiss* IS PERFECT. ramin djawadi is a musical genius through and through~~~

Brand X Music - Last Chance 

Ramin Djawadi - The Night King 

-

A terrible tremor shook the ground when Hel’s vessel landed amidst the battlefield, sending snow spraying every which way. The quake threw several pirates off their balance, and those who remained standing did their utmost to run as far away from the massive hull as they could go lest they be crushed beneath it before it skid to a halt.

Haeseon clutched onto Jihan’s robes like a vice, his breath refusing to pass his lips. The enormous ship cast its shadow over him; it was as if the sun had been swallowed by the dark of its sails. The mere sight of it made him feel smaller than he ever had, as if he was a mere speck of dust in its path, hardly worthy of notice.

One by one, hooded figures walked up to the rail until there was no space left between them. There were a hundred of them at least, unmoving as they waited for a command to send them to overrun those standing amidst the field of battle.

“Get back to the ship!”

Haeseon startled upon the sudden call and Jihan’s grip on him tightened for a brief moment, as if it was a protective instinct. They recognised the voice quickly enough, however, and struggled to rise to meet Daewon’s approach. “What goddess sails a ship like a pirate?” the first mate asked in distress when he reached them. He offered Jihan his hand to help him stand and grunted as he pulled them both upright. “I don’t want to imagine how many men that ship carries. We have to leave, now!”

“Yes,” Jihan said, nodding. His voice was still raw and he raised his hand to roughly wipe the tears from his face. He was not alright yet, Haeseon knew it, but he donned his captain’s mask and turned to call out his orders. “All hands, return to the August! Help those who can’t walk, and don’t turn back!”

His crew moved as one, with no pretense of honour or pride keeping them lingering on the battlefield. They made for the shore as fast as they could, staggering over themselves in their hurry to reach the two dinghies waiting to take them back to their ship. In spite of their dread, however, they left no man behind; they dragged the injured aboard first and waited for the others, or waded through the water when there was no more room.

Daewon lingered by Jihan’s side, gaze falling to Elyas’ lifeless body. “What about—”

“Leave him to the starving animals,” the captain said, his voice every bit as cold as the waters. “If she brings him back, I’ll kill him again.”

While the August’s crew rushed to get as far away from Hel’s vessel as they could go, Talya and her Northerners remained where they stood, unyielding in the face of the goddess of death and her army. Only Qasim looked afraid, holding tightly onto Talya’s mane and urging her to retreat, but in her Blessing’s form, there was little he could do to force her to move.

“Talya,” Haeseon said and came to a halt halfway to the shore, dread clawing at his chest. Next to him, Jihan stopped as well, although the grip he had on Haeseon’s hand tightened, as if he wanted to drag him ahead. “Talya, come with us, you have to—”

His words were lost in his own horror when he saw the men aboard the enormous vessel part to give way for the one who led them. Hel approached the rail, flanked by the same cloaked man who had been at her side when Haeseon had last seen her; her smile was the same now, if not wider, as she climbed up onto the rail and looked down at Talya.

In the face of the goddess of death, the Northern Cardinal lowered herself to the ground, not in submission, but to brace herself to charge.

“That bloody stupid—” Jihan began, spitting a curse out from between gritted teeth. He turned away, still holding firmly onto Haeseon’s hand. “Send the men aboard the ship,” he told Daewon and placed a hand on his shoulder to push him towards the shore, “and bring the dinghies back around for us and these suicidal maniacs.”

“But—”

“Just do it, Daewon!” The captain’s urgency was obvious, as was his bottomless frustration. “Quickly, before the bitch comes for the rest of us!”

With no small amount of reluctance, Daewon did as told and took off towards the dinghies, shouting at the waiting men to push out to sea. Just as their first mate, the pirates did so with hesitation; even in their dread, they did not want to leave their captain ashore.

“Songbird,” Jihan said with forced calm. When Haeseon did not turn to look at him, he grabbed hold of his other arm as well, shaking him slightly. “Songbird, we can’t stay here. We have to go, now, or all of us will—”

“Oh gods.”

The words left Haeseon along with all the air in his lungs, the whole of him going cold as ice. Aboard her great ship, Hel had spoken a strange command and her men complied and moved, not to disembark and charge at the poor souls lingering on the battlefield, but to drag a crippled form up to the rail, bound and broken, blonde hair matted with blood. His broken arm was twisted worse than it had been only the previous day, and his bare chest was littered with cuts and bruises.

“Oh gods,” Haeseon whispered again, his hands trembling as he raised them to his lips. “Oh gods, that’s—”

“Refur!” Talya’s voice was shriller than Haeseon had ever heard it. She had changed out of her Blessing’s form into one that was half human, half beast, so her words could reach her crewman. She was pale, eyes wide with dread; even her movements grew slow and clumsy with shock when she fought against the grip Qasim took on her shoulders. “Refur!” she shouted again, rage filling her voice when she turned on Hel instead and cursed at her with words Haeseon could not understand.

Around her, her men followed her lead, brandishing their weapons and barking foul words at the goddess of death. Some of them spat on the ground by their feet, the crude gesture denouncing she who was one of the gods they had worshipped.

Hel listened to it all with a smile still playing at her lip. She waited, patient as could be, until Talya ran out of words and air and had to stop. The moment she did, the goddess of death turned to Refur instead, and struck him across the face.

The slap lasted only for a fraction of a second, but the archer cried out as if Hel had dug a knife into his cheek and twisted it again and again. He screamed, writhing in the ropes that bound him; if not for the men holding him up, he would’ve fallen to his knees, rendered weak by his agony.

“Stop it!” Talya shouted, thrashing against Qasim’s grip. She clawed at the air as if it would give way, as if it would bring her close enough to her crewman to help him. “REFUR!”

With a cruel laughter, Hel turned fully to face her prey, and pressed her hand to the wounds across his chest.

The sound that spilled from Refur’s lips was terrible, a blood-curdling scream that had Haeseon covering his ears in attempt to shut it out. It echoed inside his very being as the archer’s body curled and spasmed as his life was torn from him by Hel’s touch. His skin turned purple and green and then grey, cracking and decaying, as if a rot was spreading through him from within.

“NO!” Talya screamed, as if Refur’s agony was her own. “Let go of him, STOP IT!”

Her pleas went unheard by the goddess of death, whose grip remained firm until the blonde archer’s voice gave in, his throat rendered useless by his plague. Slowly, his frame crumbled, the last of his breath quivering as it left his lips and his body lost its strength. He fell to the deck with a crack that rang loud in the wake of his screams, and he did not rise again.

The silence was deafening and thick, suffocating to the point Haeseon couldn’t breathe. His ears rang with terror and tears fell without restraint down his cheeks, and in his chest, the Canary thrashed with hysteria.

The absolute quiet lasted only for a moment, broken by the scream that burst from Talya’s lips. It was ragged and full of grief, and her men joined their voices to hers until the very ground trembled with it. 

“Fuck,” Jihan hissed, his grip on Haeseon turning all but bruising. “Fuck, fuck, this is—it’s not—” The words wouldn’t come to him, but he did not need them to. Instead, he gritted his teeth hard and turned, dragging Haeseon towards the shore, where the dinghies were making their way back to shore.

“No,” Haeseon said hoarsely, even though he was too numb to fight back. He dug his heels into the ground to slow them down, but he was weak in the wake of the horrible display, his body incapable of doing as compelled. “No, it’s Talya, w-we can’t just leave her, Jihan!”

“We can’t stay, either!” the captain retorted, verging on a shout. There was panic in his voice, no matter how fiercely he tried to not let it through. “We can’t just wait for Hel to fucking—to do that to the rest of us!”

“But—”

“TALYA!”

Haeseon turned so quickly he would’ve fallen if not for Jihan’s grip, the whole of him going rigid with dread at what he saw. Hel leaped from the rail of her ship at the same time as Talya broke free from Qasim’s hold and took her Blessing’s form. With a snarl, the Northern Cardinal charged at the goddess of death, who waited with a smile on her lips and her arms raised halfway, as if to welcome her prey with an embrace before the touch of death would claim her.

Instead of leaping at Hel Talya went low, ducking under her outstretched arms and lashing out against her stomach. Her claws caught the goddess of death in the waist and shred through her leather garb with ease. With her weight carrying her forward through her charge, Talya failed to close her jaw around Hel’s exposed skin, but her fangs tore gashes into her hip, blood bursting from the open wound.

The goddess of death emitted a guttural sound, but it was nothing in comparison to the cry that spilled from Talya’s maw. Hel’s blood sprayed against the side of her face, and as if the red liquid itself had been acid, the Northern Cardinal shrieked and recoiled, the whole of her body contorting in agony.

“Talya!” Haeseon cried, his voice breaking with distress.

“Songbird, we have to go!” Jihan was pleading now, tugging him towards the dinghies with all his might. “Songbird!”

Haeseon might’ve faltered, if only for the weakness of his own body, but as Hel reached out towards the Northern Cardinal’s face with no doubt of her intent, his reason was overcome by the will of his Blessing. The changing of his wings made Jihan’s grip on him falter, and he tore himself free and rose to the skies, driven forward by naught but desperation.

“Songbird, don’t!”

His beloved’s voice rang like sirens in his ears, but he couldn’t have stopped even if he had wanted to. Haeseon was faster than the northerners and Qasim, all of whom had followed their captain to save her from the touch of death that had claimed Refur. They charged as one, but they were too far, so Haeseon dove towards them just as the very tips of Hel’s fingers brushed past Talya’s mane. 

“GET AWAY!”

His voice burst past his lips with explosive force, as if a pulse of naught but sheer pressure had sprang forth from his lungs. Both Talya and Hel staggered from it, the latter’s face contorting into a scowl of pain as she reached up to cover her ears to block out the shrill sound.

When Haeseon landed between them, his legs folding with pain of his rapid descent, the goddess of death looked at him with fierce hatred. Gone was her mirth and the mild curiosity with which she had looked at him when he’d been dragged outside his cage. There was only loathing now, a promise of death for he who had kept her from fulfilling her vengeance.

Before Haeseon could as much as straighten up, Hel vanished from his sight, disappearing into nothingness along with her ship and all the men that crewed it to leave nothing behind but the bloodied snow of the battlefield. “What,” Haeseon began and drew back several paces, overcome with confusion.

“Yun Haeseon!” He whirled around, eyes growing wide at the sight of Qasim standing over Talya’s writhing body, arms raised high over his head. “It’s an illusion,” he said, his words quick and urgent to explain. “She can’t see us and we can’t see her, but she’s still there, her and her men.” His arms quivered, either from fear or the effort it took to hold the illusion steady. “We have to get Talya to the ship before they break through it!”

The northerners reached them before Haeseon could so much as nod, forgoing all thoughts of battle or vengeance in favour of taking hold of their captain. It took four of them to carry Talya in her Blessing’s form, the task made more difficult by her incessant thrashing, still plagued by what Hel’s blood had done to her.

Haeseon had only taken a few steps when a chorus of cannonfire tore through the air. It didn’t come from the ship waiting just beyond Qasim’s illusion, but from the shore, where Freyr’s ship had turned to aim its cannons at Hel’s vessel. The damage went unseen by Haeseon, as did the sounds of the destruction they must’ve caused; the illusion swallowed sound and sight alike.

“He’s distracting them,” Qasim said without taking his eyes off his mirage. He walked backwards in retreat, for fear the illusion might fail should he turn away. “He’s covering our escape.”

They moved quickly across the battlefield and met Jihan halfway, the captain having followed Haeseon’s charge. “Get her into the dinghy!” he barked at the northerners even though they did not know his words, before turning to Haeseon and raising both hands to his face, trembling where they cupped his cheeks. “Don’t ever do that again, you hear me, songbird? Never again.”

Haeseon’s voice wouldn’t come, rendered mute by the adrenaline coursing hot through his veins. All he could do was nod, even though both he and Jihan knew it was not a promise that would last.

They heaved Talya into one of the dinghies, and instead of boarding, the northern men pushed the boat out to sea and followed it into the freezing waters, unfazed by the cold as they guided it towards the August. If not for their hurry, Haeseon might’ve marveled at their resolve, but there was not much he could do but fear just then, to be afraid of what they were running from.

Jihan pulled him into the other dinghy and Daewon helped Qasim board amidst his state of concentration. Sweat beaded across the northerner’s temple in spite of the cold and trickled down his face, and his breath grew more and more laboured for every passing second. “They’re attempting to break free,” he said before Haeseon could ask, as if he had sensed his question. “Their illusion is different. I hid them from our sight for Ta—my captain’s sake, but to their eyes, their world is black as a night without stars. They can’t see and they don’t know which way to go, but they know it’s not reality.”

Haeseon parted his lips to reply, but his voice still lay buried beneath the weight of his Blessing’s rashness, so he only nodded and closed his eyes to pray to anyone who would hear that Hel and her men wouldn’t find the path that led their way.

They reached the August quickly enough and worked as one to raise the dinghies up the ship’s hull. Seunggi pulled Haeseon into his arms immediately, holding him tightly against his chest while Jihan went to take command of his vessel. “Tell your men to carry her into the infirmary,” he barked at Qasim with a jerk of his head Talya’s way before rushing over to the helm to take charge. “The rest of you, release full sails! I want as much distance between us and land as we can put!”

While his crew moved to comply, the northerners struggled to lift their captain out of the dinghy. She had changed her skin into her hybrid form, but her agony remained and made her thrash and flail as if fighting some enemy only she could see. The skin across the side of her face was purple and grey just like Refur’s had been in his final moments, black with a plague that rendered her delirious; she spoke incoherent words, out of breath and desperate, eyes wide and unseeing.

“What is she saying?” Haeseon asked hoarsely of Qasim, distressed with worry for his friend. Seunggi held him tightly when he tried to follow, refusing to let him go now that he had him securely in his arms again.

“She’s delirious,” Qasim told him through gritted teeth. His illusions still carried, but he looked as if he was moments away from succumbing to his exhaustion. “She says Hel is not Hel. She says the woman is no goddess, but human, only a mere human like the rest of us.” He grimaced and threw a brief look at his captain. His married wife. “She says she saw her face and she knows it, and that it’s no face of a deity or spirit.”

Haeseon’s lips fell open in bewilderment, but Seunggi spoke before he could voice his confusion. “Haesae,” the quartermaster whispered, his good eye wide behind his mask as he stared towards the fore. “Haesae, look.”

Amidst the deck stood the vǫlva of Talya’s crew, as if she was an apparition or spirit of sorts. Haeseon did not know where she had come from, nor how she had come aboard the August, but she allowed none of them the time to ask. Without paying heed to Jihan or any of the crewmen, she walked towards the infirmary, the beads of her mask clattering for every step.

When the northern pirates emerged from the sickbay, having carried their captain there, they addressed the vǫlva with a myriad of questions, but she ignored each and every one of them. They let her pass unbothered even though she gave their worry no consolation; it was as if they were afraid to touch her, as if her ghostly appearance would harm them worse than death.

The vǫlva halted in the doorway and turned, searching, until her eyes fell on Haeseon. “Come,” was all she said before disappearing into the room without waiting for him to comply.

It took him a long moment to realise the seer had spoken the tongue of Joseon. Her sudden appearance left him winded, thus all he did was stare, until Seunggi let him go with obvious reluctance. “Go with her, Haesae,” he said. His face was marred by hesitance and concern, but he nudged him against the infirmary all the same. “Perhaps you can help her.”

Haeseon looked from the quartermaster to Jihan where he stood by the helm. The captain’s distrust was clear, his jaw set tight as he returned his gaze, but with a crew to lead to their escape, Jihan said nothing in terms of protest.

With his heart beating wildly in his chest, Haeseon hurried after the vǫlva into the dim infirmary and shut the door behind himself. He leaned against it for support as he took in the sight of the sickbay; stools and stands had been shoved aside to make room for where Talya lay on her back on the floor, twisting and straining against whatever it was that plagued her. 

The vǫlva sat hunched over her, hands hovering over her sweaty skin as if she was the one causing the Northern Cardinal’s chest to expand and collapse rapidly with her laboured breath. She whispered incoherent words and hushed Talya when a flare of pain went through her body and her spine arched off the floor, a cry spilling from her lips. Between gasps of pain, she spoke, repeating the same words Qasim had transcribed for him.

Haeseon did not dare move without being told to do so, and for every second that passed without a command, he grew more anxious, doubting whether or not the vǫlva had truly meant for him to come.

“Are you afraid?”

He startled at the words, quiet yet clear in the tongue of the land that had once been his home. He parted his lips, but naught but a quivering breath slipped past them. If the seer found his silence strange, she said nothing of it; instead, she raised her hand and beckoned him to Talya’s side. “There is no need to fear,” she said when he went to his knees by her side. “Our captain will not die tonight.”

Haeseon swallowed thickly against the dread in his throat. “Ho-how can you be so certain?” he asked. Truly, Talya looked as if she was dying, the rot having spread to her jaw to leave her skin greying and cracked in its wake.

“Because it is my duty,” the vǫlva said, the beads of her mask clattering when she turned his way. In the darkness of the infirmary, he could not see beyond the sockets of the mask; it was as if the stag’s skull was the face the woman had been born with. “I will do the duty I was sent to her side to do. I will heal her.”

She pulled a knife from within her thin garb and brought it against the side of Talya’s face. With horror, Haeseon watched her draw a cut into the Northern Cardinal’s skin, pressing down against body when she jerked with pain. The blood that spilled from the wound was darker than should be, so dark it appeared black. The seer’s knees dug into Talya’s arms with impressive strength and kept her grounded while she pushed the tips of her fingers into the cut to draw her blood more insistently.

It made Haeseon nauseous to see, his stomach turning, but the vǫlva paid him no heed. When she withdrew her hand, she pushed her mask up to give herself room to take her sullied fingers into her mouth.

“What are you doing?” Haeseon asked, his voice coming out shrill with dread. The blackened blood dripped down along the seer’s chin, scarring her skin as it went. Her lips cracked, yet she did not so much as flinch.

“I must know what ails her,” she said, as if it was answer enough. “I can’t see the poison in her blood, so I will taste it and know.”

“Poison?” Haeseon echoed. “But she—Hel’s blood is what made her like this, isn’t it? Hel brings death.”

The vǫlva looked up at him then. “This is not death, Yun Haeseon,” she said and reached out to rip one of the beads from their string next to her mask. “Death is quick. It is inescapable, and it claims you in an instant. This,” she gestured down at Talya’s convulsing body, “is not death. This is poison”

“But if it is poison,” Haeseon said slowly, eyes flickering down to the seer’s cracked lips, “then tasting it—you will—”

“I will not.” Her voice was calm where his all but radiated his distress. She took the bead into her hand and closed her fingers tightly around it. “Find me a bowl to use,” she said and turned back to Talya while Haeseon hurried to do as told. “Our gods have granted me many things. What plagues most men do not plague me; the poison in her body hurts me none. Thank you,” she said when he passed her a small wooden mortar. “Hush now.”

She raised her hand over the bowl and began to chant, speaking words that were surely not human at all. Her body rocked forward and back, and when she opened her hand once more, the bead had turned to liquid, a thick paste of sorts dripping into the bowl. From the sack she carried at her hip, she drew a pouch full of salt and poured it over the paste.

“Take her hand,” she said once she had stirred the paste. It was pale where the bead had been black, as if the salt had given it its colour. “This will be painful for her.”

With trembling hands, Haeseon took Talya’s hand in both of his and held it tightly while the vǫlva took a handful of the paste and spread it across the side of her face, drawing a winding pattern down to her neck and collar. For a moment, the Northern Cardinal remained unchanged, merely recoiling where she lay, but when the seer drew the paste back up her throat, along the scars of her chin, and pressed her fingers against her lips, Talya gasped and drew a deep lungful of air, and released it all in a strained scream, muffled by the vǫlva’s hand.

Her back arched off the floor and she convulsed, the muscles of her neck straining hard against her skin. Her legs kicked so violently the seer nearly lost her balance, and her grip on Haeseon’s hand turned bone-breaking, but he did not let go. He clutched her hand against his chest, tears burning behind his eyes.

“Make it stop,” he begged, uncaring of how pitiful he sounded. “She’s hurting.”

“She is,” the vǫlva agreed solemnly, “and she will be for many hours still. If I could pull the poison from her blood, I would do it. All I can do is coax her body into fighting back against it.” She placed her clean hand against the side of Talya’s face, a tender touch that went unnoticed in the Cardinal’s agony. “A battle hurts, Yun Haeseon, whether it happens on a bloodied field or beneath our own skin.”

She remained hunched over Talya’s body until the worst of the convulsions began to settle and her cries had faded into grunts and whimpers. With a soft sigh, the seer sat upright and reached for the binds of her mask, shedding the stag’s skull in favour of placing it above the Cardinal’s head on the floor.

When she sat upright once more, Haeseon realised to his shock that the vǫlva was blind, both of her eyes as pale and white as snow. “You’re,” he began, his voice coming out hushed, “your eyes…”

She smiled at him, and without her mask to hide her face, he could see the kindness in it, the gentleness. Her face was young but scarred all over, the bumps and ridges standing out against the dark paint she had drawn across her brow and cheeks. “The gods show me what I need to see,” she said. “The rest I’ve let go.”

“But you always—whenever you’ve healed me, you—” The question on his tongue was difficult to form, no matter how hard he tried. “You looked at me,” Haeseon said at last. “I know you did, you—your hands were always steady. You always knew where to touch.”

“I told you,” she reached out towards him with a still bloodied hand, until her fingers hovered just over the scars spread along his neck, “I see what the gods show me.” Her pale eyes followed the path her hand took, but rose from his scars to meet his gaze, as if she knew just where it was. “I’ve seen you, Yun Haeseon,” she said.

Her words made him shudder and he pulled way, overcome by discontent. A strange weight settled over him and his scars prickled with discomfort, and while the rational part of him knew it was not a cause of her presence, the other made him wary and fretful of the gods they all spoke of with such conviction.

The vǫlva said nothing of his behaviour and withdrew her hand. For a long while after that, she said nothing at all, quiet as she went about cleaning blood and sweat from Talya’s frame. She said nothing, but she began to croon, humming a slow melody under her breath. It was slow and reminded Haeseon of the cold seas he had seen when first sailing to the North; he listened intently, drawn to it by the very nature of his Blessing.

“It’s her favourite song,” the seer said without prompt. Haeseon realised his rapt attention must’ve been obvious. “Will you sing it for her? She would like it if you did.”

“I don’t know the words,” Haeseon whispered, as if it was a thing of shame. He felt truly useless then, powerless to help his friend in her suffering.

“You don’t need the words, Yun Haeseon,” the vǫlva said. She took Talya’s hand in her own and resumed her gentle crooning. Perhaps it was a cause of her otherworldly appearance, but the air itself seemed to quiver with it, as if it was a palpable thing. “Follow where the song guides you. I will do the rest.”

Haeseon did not understand what she meant, but complied as best he could all the same. When the tune she crooned repeated itself, he joined his voice to hers and trusted in his Blessing to show him the way. The vǫlva nodded, her eyes slipping shut in content, and upon the next repeat, she sang the verse with words.

Brave are the men of the Northern Seas  
No foe can send them ashore  
They know no call but the fair fair lights  
The lights gods paint ‘cross the sky  
Perhaps it was a mere trick of Haeseon’s imagination, but the tension in Talya’s hand eased in his grip and her whimpers stilled, if only by a fraction. Her Blessing’s fur retreated fully beneath her skin and head lolled to the side, as if she wanted to hear them better.

Strong are the men of the Northern Seas  
No cold may claw at their bones  
Their flags carve fear into land and its folk  
Their cries ring ‘bove every storm  
Her body still tensed for every flare of pain that went through her, but between convulsions, her breathing came easier. She shuddered, as if the cold had finally broken past the strength with which she had always kept it at bay, no matter how the air would freeze. The sight of it filled Haeseon’s eyes with tears once more, and he struggled to continue carrying the melody.

In the splendid halls of Valhöll  
Their seats of honour await  
But by will of the merciful Valkyrja  
They stand to fight one more day.   
His voice fell short of the final tone, a strange sense of familiarity coming over him upon hearing the words of the vǫlva’s song. “Valkyrja,” he said slowly to himself, frowning. He had heard the name before, he knew he had, but he couldn’t recall where, nor who had said it to him. “Valkyrja…”

“The Valkyrja are spirits of the North,” the shaman said. Her pale eyes had lifted from Talya’s frame to seek his instead, as if they could see him past their blindness. “They are maids of the high king Óðinn, winged women who choose those who live and die in battle. We worship them as we do the rest of our gods, and pray to them for honour in death.”

She took Haeseon’s hand and guided it to Talya’s chest, where she placed it over her heart. “If you listen, Yun Haeseon, you can hear it,” she said, a smile quirking her scarred lip. “She is not like you or I, or any of the men she sails with. She can’t resist the call of battle. You know this, you’ve seen it, but do you know why?”

Without letting go of Haeseon’s hand, she leaned close over Talya’s body so she could speak into his ear, as if her words were a secret no one else could know. “To the crew, she is their captain,” she whispered, “but to me and all the gods of Asgard, she is a daughter of Hildr, the Valkyrja of Battle.”

Haeseon did not dare breathe or even blink as he stared down at the Northern Cardinal’s trembling form, rendered weak by the poison coursing through her body. The vǫlva’s words rang clear, yet he could not hear them right for the echo of the distant heart, beating hard against his ears.

“The blood of the Valkyrja is hers,” the vǫlva said, eyes glowing in the light of the candles. “No matter how she resists, she cannot refuse the battle’s call once it beckons her, and we, her loyal subjects, will chase it with her until we reach the gates of Valhöll, where we will take our seats of honour, and she will join her blessed ancestors.”

-

am i done screaming now? i think not

sO

SO THAT

THAT’S A THING THAT WE NOW KNOW

also i kinda sorta actually made that song that the seer sings .__. it's kinda attached to this chapter so like if you wanna listen to me sing it and tell me what you think, you can do that .____.

UWU

OKAY BUT TALYA???? IS A???? OR IS SHE????? AND WHAT SHE SAID ABOUT HEL?????? wHaT iS aLL tHiS sUDdEn cONfUsiNg InFOrmATiOn??????

also may refur's spirit join the warriors of valhöll and serve as one of odinn's revered men of battle.

:(

anD ASIDE FROM ALL THAT THERE'S STILL SO MUCH SHET THAT'S GONNA HAPPEN AND THAT'S GONNA MAKE EVERYTHING EVEN WORSE AND JUST

AHHHHHHHHHHH—

i love this book again, even though everyone's miserable and hurt, i LOVE THIS BOOK AND THE NORSE MYTHOLOGY AND EVERYTHING UGH

mkay so because all this book is doing right now is making me sAD, i thought of a cute little scene that i'll share with y'all to make the pain easier:

imagine haeseon convincing jihan to walk through a field of flowers and just be at peace for once, and they sit down for a while and haeseon falls asleep in jihan's arms, and to pass the time, jihan plucks nearby flowers and puts them in haeseon's hair until he has a whole crown of flowers and jihan is just so…… content with the world and his life just then... 

ahh………. if only………….

MKAY SO NEXT WEEK, I'LL SEE Y'ALL N


	30. chapter 29 - Valkyrja

alternative title for this chapter: talya is the mother of badassery and literally the whole world needs to know that

-

The truth of the vǫlva's words took a long moment to manifest in Haeseon's mind. He couldn't fathom it to be real; he knew Talya. She was his friend, a pirate captain from the North, undoubtedly the fiercest of the Cardinals. She was Talya, only now, suddenly, she wasn’t just Talya anymore.

“She,” Haeseon began, his voice every bit as quiet as the seer’s had been in his shock. He stared down at the Northern Cardinal’s trembling form, rendered weak by the poison coursing her body. “She’s not human?”

“No,” the vǫlva said and pressed his hand more firmly against Talya’s chest. The rapid beat of her heart flared up against his touch, made quick by the poison. “She chose to stay amongst humans rather than fulfill the duty she was born to, but she cannot change the truth.” Her pale eyes glowed with the lights of the candles, and the very air around her quivered. “Talya Sabelsdottír may be her name,” she said, “but by Hildr’s own decree, she is Valkyrja.”

“But…” Haeseon wasn’t certain what it was he wanted to say. All he could do was look, as if in waiting to see a sign, anything that could’ve given away the truth of Talya’s nature. He found none; she looked the same as she always had, every bit as human as every other woman or man Haeseon had met in his life. The only difference now were the marks of the poison in her veins, but those were not her own. “But how?” he managed at last, his mind swimming with confusion.

The vǫlva inclined her head. “How?” she echoed, as if she was perplexed by the question. “The nature of birth is the same for gods as it is for us. You and I were born human, not as gods or spirits, but Talya was born as both.”

Her words made even less sense now. Haeseon parted his lips, only to close them again when he realised he did not know what he wanted to ask. He wanted to understand, but with no basis for grasping at the truth the seer had laid out for him, he could only look, rendered mute by his bewilderment.

The vǫlva took mercy on him quickly enough, a small smile gracing her lips when she looked up at him, her unseeing eyes settling on his cheek. “I was sent to her by the gods,” she said, “to escort her to the halls where she belonged. She may have been born in this world, but Ásgarðr is her true home, and I was to be her guide. The voice of Hildr came to me in the night and told me of her child, one worthy of a seat by the high king’s table.”

Haeseon clung to every word, no matter how little they did to make him see. A part of him knew he ought to have grown accustomed to the thought of the northern gods walking amongst men, having spent weeks and weeks running from Hel herself, but no matter how he tried, he could not grasp at it or accept it for what it was.

Talya was Talya. Talya was strong and unyielding in her determination, but still Talya.

“She is stubborn, much like you,” the seer said, her smile growing. “When I came to her, she was a mere girl of seven, but she refused to accept the truth for what it was. I don’t desire a power such as this, she said to me. I’m no god and no spirit. The strength I wield will be one I’ve acquired by my own hand, not by the nature I've inherited from an ancestor I've never met.”

Had Haeseon’s mind been clearer, he might’ve laughed. Truly, it sounded like something Talya would’ve said. “Valkyrja,” he said slowly and looked up to the vǫlva’s blind gaze. It took more effort than he could’ve imagined, as if his friend would change somehow should he turn away from her now. “I can’t—I don’t understand. If she is what you say, why is she—how is she still here?”

“Her will is her own,” the seer said simply, as if it was answer enough. “No matter her nature, Hildr was never cruel. When Talya refused her heritage and chose humans over her ancestry's mother, the Valkyrja of Battle honoured her choice. After all, whether she be a spirit or in the disguise of a human, Talya’s nature would not change. She still seeks battle and she still leads men and women to their deaths.” A wistfulness came over her words. “She does not choose them like Hildr does, not willingly, but it is by her command that they sail to battle, and it is by her nature that they die.”

“Does she know?” Haeseon asked, cold with dread. He held tightly onto Talya’s hand and hoped with all his might that she was unaware, knowing it would pain her if she did. “Does she know what she does?”

“No,” the vǫlva said, “but even if she did, it would not change her. She would hurt to know it, but she cannot resist the call of battle. It is part of her, and it will be until the day she dies herself. You saw it, when Choi Jihan and Iric Ried convinced her to not chase after her enemy. It hurt her to not go.” She raised her hand and pointed to Haeseon’s chest. “If someone forbade you from flying when the canary in you was desperate to, could you remain grounded? Could you resist its call?”

“No,” Haeseon said at once. It made him ache just to imagine; when his Blessing’s call was at its strongest, he couldn’t have refused it even if he’d wanted to.

The vǫlva nodded as if she understood. “It is the same for her,” she said and cast her gaze back down on Talya. “No matter how she would beg to be freed from it, she cannot resist the Valkyrja’s call.”

All at once, a rush of cold rushed through Haeseon, his eyes growing wide with recognition of the seer’s words. A memory, distant as a dream, came to him upon the vǫlva’s words, as clear as if he had only just woken from it. He recalled a face, terrible and snarling, and remembered its harsh voice as it called him a liar. “The Valkyrja will tell you my name, little crow,” it had said. “She will send you to me, and you will beg for me to save you.”

“Valkyrja,” Haeseon whispered. His heart beat frantically against his chest, the whole of him growing taut with nerves. “Is Talya… she’s a Valkyrja.”

The vǫlva’s eyes were on him once more, this time steady as they met his, as if she could truly see him then. “She is touched by the gods,” she said slowly, “as are you, Yun Haeseon. Your shyness makes you refuse it, but just as Talya cannot change her nature, you cannot change yours, either.”

“I’m not,” Haeseon said in protest before he could properly think about the seer’s words. He was nothing special, not like Talya was, not even like Jihan or anyone else aboard the ship was. “My scars are no god’s work or touch or blessing. They’re only… they only are.”

“Stubborn,” the vǫlva said with a smile. She did not blink; when Haeseon turned his head slightly, she followed his movements to keep their gaze locked. “Just as she is. But you will see. The North needs you yet, and in time, you will see why.”

Haeseon grew anxious upon her words, a heavy discomfort settling over his frame. He did not know what the seer expected of him—nor what Talya expected of him, either, or where her awe for his being had first come from—but he knew he was not whomever they believed him to be. With an incoherent sound of denial, he shook his head and looked down at his friend instead, keen on averting the seer’s attention from himself.

“If Talya is a Valkyrja,” he said, valiantly pretending his skin did not prickle with the vǫlva’s rapt attention, “was her mother one, too?”

It was obvious the seer knew he was only attempting to deflect the burden she had lain on him. Her smile was faint and appeared all but pitying before she turned away as well, but she humoured him all the same. “Her lineage have birthed generation after generation of daughters,” she said, “and every woman has borne the blood of the Valkyrja. Talya and her sister, their mother, and her mother before her, back a thousand years to when Hildr first lay with a hero of old and the daughters of the Saber were born.”

Vaguely, Haeseon remembered the Northern Cardinal speaking of her sister, so briefly it had barely lingered in his memory. She hadn’t mentioned her name, only that she had died a long time ago. “Then Talya is the last one,” he said. It made him sad to think it was so. “She bears the burden of her lineage on her own.”

“It doesn’t have to be so,” the vǫlva said. “The Valkyrja are women, as have Talya’s ancestors always been, until—”

“Until me.”

Haeseon startled upon the sudden voice, drawing a sharp gasp as he turned to the door and found Freyr leaning against it. He hadn’t heard the boy enter, nor had he realised his presence aboard their ship, and it had his nervousness grow tenfold; he didn’t like the thought of Freyr hearing the high words the vǫlva had spoken of him, untrue as they were.

“I’m the first son the women of Talya’s lineage have borne,” he said. His voice was bitter, as was his gaze as he looked upon his mother, still writhing with the poison’s pain. “Unless my mother bears another child, a daughter, her family of Valkyrja will die with me. Hildr will have to find another human to get her with child so her line may prosper.”

“Calm, Freyr.” The vǫlva’s voice surprised Haeseon; it was soft as before, but the warmth it had carried before was gone. She did not look at him, even in attempt, but kept her blind gaze on Talya’s shivering frame. “This is not the time,” she said solemnly.

“Isn’t it?” the boy spat and jerked his head Haeseon’s way. “You’ve decided to tell him everything, haven’t you? Why leave out the most important part?”

While Haeseon drew his arms tightly against his chest out of sheer instinct upon Freyr’s harshness, the seer remained wholly unaffected. “Because it is not important,” she said. “I know you like to convince yourself it is, but Talya does not judge you for being born as you are. You should cease it as well. Berating yourself and blaming the canary will earn you nothing.”

Startled at being dragged into the argument, Haeseon threw a nervous glance Freyr’s way, fretful of his reaction. He looked away again before the boy could meet his eyes, and even though he said nothing, Haeseon could feel Freyr’s affront as if it was a palpable touch. His gaze burned like fire against the side of Haeseon’s head, white-hot with the hatred he had chosen to bear for him.

When Freyr finally spoke, his voice was taut with anger. “Will she die?” he asked of the vǫlva. “Will my mother die?”

“No,” she said, just as calm as before.

The boy nodded curtly. “May I leave?”

“You should,” the seer told him and only looked up when Freyr turned towards the door. “Be careful, boy. You’re not home now.”

He emitted a sound like a bitter laugh and tore the door open. “The North is my home,” he said through gritted teeth. “The canary is the one who has lost his way and stumbled out onto thin ice.” With that, he left, slamming the door shut with enough force to rattle the lanterns hanging from the walls. In his wake, the infirmary was silent as a crypt, the only noise coming from Talya when she groaned in her state of unconsciousness.

Haeseon did not dare look up from his lap until the vǫlva heaved a light sigh, her patience still unaffected by Freyr’s tantrum. “Do not worry,” she said and leaned back where she sat. “His temper is not to be feared.”

Haeseon was far from inclined to believe her; the boy seemed determined to despise him with such passion, it would hardly surprise him should he turn on him with sword in hand. The thought was distressing, far more so with Talya immobilised by Hel’s touch, thus he shook his head and searched for something, anything else she could ask of the seer.

The thought of Hel brought to mind the Northern Cardinal’s feverish words. With a nervous look at the door, Haeseon cleared his throat, hesitating. “Talya said Hel is not Hel,” he said slowly. His gaze flickered nervously between his friend’s body and the vǫlva’s face, seeking the truth from her expression all the while fearing it. “She said… she said she saw her face and knew it, and that she is not Hel.”

“She is not,” the seer said, nodding. “The fact that Talya is still alive is proof enough of that. No one, neither god nor human, would survive tasting the blood of the goddess of death.”

“But she can kill with only a touch,” Haeseon said. It hurt to think of the times he had seen her do it, but he had to know all the same. “She did it to Refur, she… her ship flew. No human ship can sail through the air the way her vessel did.”

The vǫlva’s smile returned to her lips, bewildering Haeseon further still; their situation was hardly an amusing one, yet the seer seemed wholly at peace. “If a Blessing can make you fly, canary,” she said, “then a Blessing can make a ship fly as well.”

Haeseon parted his lips and closed them again, dumbstruck by the simplicity of her words. Now that she had spoken them, it seemed like an obvious possibility, that there had been no act of gods or goddesses to keep the ship afloat, but merely the effort of a Blessing. A powerful Blessing, but one all the same. “Is that all it was?” he asked, his voice made high in disbelief. “A Blessing?”

“Undoubtedly, there are many Blessings aboard her ship,” the seer said. “There are many hundred men sailing it, and their captain bears one herself.” She reached for Talya’s face, her fingers hovering over the streaks of poison spread across her cheeks. “You yourself said Hel looked like Talya,” she said after a moment. “You said she looked like Talya, but twisted and wrong. Our captain is not unique in looks, not amongst the people she has chosen, but you were certain of what you had seen.”

“Yes,” Haeseon said, this time without hesitating. He recalled the resemblance with ease, both from when Hel had crouched before him in Elyas Lowe’s fortress, as well as from the dream in which she had laughed at him and spewed darkness from her lips. “Her eyes were green.”

“So were Talya’s, once,” the vǫlva said. “Before she was given the Blessing of the Sabertooth Tiger. Every woman of her ancestry have had eyes as green as the lights our gods send dancing across the skies.” She smiled, the faintest curl of her lips. “Freyr’s eyes are green as well.”

“But,” Haeseon said, brows knitting tightly in his confusion, “if Hel is not Hel, how can she look like Talya?” He thought back to what the Northern Cardinal had said when he’d first told her of the resemblance she carried with the woman they knew as Hel. “She can’t have taken Talya’s mother’s body for her own. She would have no power over it.”

The vǫlva nodded her agreement. “She would not,” she said simply. “If Hel is not Hel, she must have a human body of her own.”

A twinge of frustration pricked at the back of Haeseon’s mind. There was a part of him that questioned the extent of the seer’s knowledge about the woman they’d sailed north to fight; he wondered if she had known all along. “Then who is she?” he asked. His head was aching now that the adrenaline still lingering from the battle had faded, as well as from the overabundance of information he had been forced to take in. “Talya’s mother is dead. She has to be, or Talya would not have received her Blessing.”

“Talya’s mother is dead,” the vǫlva echoed, nodding, “but Talya’s mother is not the only woman in their ancestry aside from Talya herself.”

Haeseon’s frown deepened at the implication. “Talya’s sister is dead as well,” he said.

“Is she?” The retort was spoken so easily, Haeseon did not fully think to answer before she turned to look at him, her head inclined in a curious manner. “Do you know this?” she asked.

“I—” he began, but faltered under her unsettling gaze. “Talya told me she died years ago.”

“Talya never knew the truth for certain,” the seer said. “Surely, she knows it now that she has seen her face once more, but until this day, she has fancied her sister to be dead. After all, it was Talya herself who threw her off the side of a mountain and left her to die. She did not follow her down to make sure she had seen her task through.”

Haeseon’s eyes grew wide, a chill of dread clashing against the shock in his chest upon the seer’s words. She spoke them so calmly, he could not fathom them to be true. Not Talya, cheerful, kind Talya who treated him as if he was one of her own. The thought that Talya, who was never cruel, would’ve committed such a terrible act was far less believable than the truth of her nature.

The vǫlva was unfazed by his shock. “Talya’s mother was Ragna Sabelsdottír, daughter of Helga, who bore two daughters of her own,” she said. Her pale eyes stared at the wall behind Haeseon’s back, as if she could see the names written there. “Saga came first, and two years later, Talya was born. As children, they were wild—daughters of the Valkyrja have always been wild—but even though they were close, there have never been two sisters so different.”

She curled her hands into fists and pressed them together side by side. “While Talya bore signs of Hildr’s ancestry since the day she came into this world, Saga showed none of her strength,” she said and lowered her left hand slightly. “She was never weak by any means, but the absence of Hildr’s blood in her veins made her greedy. She wanted too much too fiercely, and rather than gain the gods honour that she so desired, she lost that which had been hers since birth.”

Saga, Haeseon thought and attempted to join the name with the woman who had—and still did—struck terror in him with naught but her presence. He did not know its meaning, but the name seemed too gentle for someone such as her; Hel was far more fitting.

“Saga was Talya’s elder sister and fancied herself the successor of their mother’s Blessing,” the vǫlva went on, “but when time came for Ragna to choose, it was Talya she saw as the true heir to the Saber’s name. She chose Talya to be her successor, and, as you could imagine, it angered Saga more than anything ever had.” She looked at Haeseon. “She found a Blessing to call her own, the Blessing of Venom, and spread its poison through her mother’s body.”

The air in Haeseon’s lungs left him in a quivering exhale, and he clutched tightly onto Talya’s hand. “She killed her own mother?” he asked shrilly, even though it was not a question he wanted answered.

Had he not been staring so intently at the seer, he might’ve missed the twitch that went through her jaw as she nodded. “She wanted to steal the Blessing of the Sabertooth Tiger before Ragna could give it away on her own terms,” she said and knocked her fists together, “but Talya came upon her amidst the act. She pried the Blessed Rune from Saga’s hands and became one with it, and threw her sister from a mountain to pay for what she had done to their mother.”

Haeseon barely dared to draw breath, clinging to every word the vǫlva spoke. “Then she should be dead,” he whispered, unknowing whether his own words were a statement or a hope.

“Talya never looked for her body,” she said. “She thought like you; surely, a fall from a mountain would be enough to kill anyone, but she forgot that neither she nor her sister were ever human. The blood of the Valkyrja was never strong in Saga, but she bore it all the same. I have no doubt it was what helped her survive.”

For a long moment, Haeseon said nothing. He couldn’t; it was as if his world had been turned on its axis, the scales of reason tipping more steeply than what he could comprehend all at once. Talya was not human and Hel was not Hel at all. The basis for all that had happened and all they had done lay askew, and Haeseon did not know what to think.

When he finally found his voice again, his words were slow with his lingering disbelief. “There never was a goddess of death,” he said. He spoke to himself rather than the vǫlva, as if saying the words aloud would make the truth behind them easier to grasp. “The one we sailed north to fight is Talya’s sister.”

The seer set her blind gaze on his face, not quite reaching his eyes. “There is relief in you even though there should be none of it,” she said, and even though her tone remained calm as ever, they brought the tension right back to Haeseon’s body. “You’ve seen what she can do. Whether it be by the power of a goddess or not, she can still do all those things and more. Lust for vengeance is a terrible motivator. You know this. Much like you wanted Elyas Lowe to die for what he did to your crewmen, Saga wants Talya dead for what she did to her. The thought of revenge gave her the strength not only to live, but to raise an army to serve her as if she truly was the goddess of death.”

Haeseon cast down his gaze with a feeling as if he had been scolded. He knew the vǫlva was right; if anything, the thought that a human could accomplish all they had believed to be the work of a god made her all the more frightening. He thought back to the pirates he had seen flock to the deck of their enemy’s ship, men and women and hundreds of them. With all the men they had lost, the August’s crew, along with Talya and Freyr’s, consisted of no more than sixty, wholly outnumbered before their eventual clash could even come about.

He closed his eyes and sighed, dreading the moment he would have to tell Jihan of what he had heard. His beloved was exhausted already, tired and in mourning, and this news would only serve to add to the weight that pushed hard on his shoulders. Haeseon knew the captain would do his utmost to bear it all the same, but all he wanted was for Jihan to rest.

He wanted all of them to rest and be at peace once more.

Countless minutes had had time to pass before he regained enough of his wits to ask the seer what he most wanted to know. “Why have you told me all of this?” he asked. His words were nervous, as was his gaze when he looked up at her. He did not know if the question was one he wanted answered; part of him knew whatever the vǫlva said, it would not soothe him, but the other part knew he had to hear the truth from her before long. “Why did you call me to this room? Why… why me?”

“Because you must know,” she said and reached for his hand, the one in which he held Talya’s. The tone of her voice was gentle, sympathetic, even, as if she knew very well of the burden she was placing upon him. “I told you, the North will need you still, and when it does, you will have to know.”

“But why?” he insisted. All of a sudden, he felt more exhausted than he had in a long time, as if his strength was about to leave him in the blink of an eye. “What can I do? I can’t—I’m only me.”

“You are,” the seer agreed, “and that is enough.”

It was not the answer Haeseon wanted. It did nothing to clarify that which he did not know, but before he could so much as part his lips to tell the vǫlva, Talya’s hand stirred in his grasp, clutching weakly at his fingers where she could reach them. Startled, Haeseon tore his eyes off the seer and looked down to find the Northern Cardinal staring back up at him. Her chest was heaving with her laboured breath and the smile that graced her lips was crooked and delirious, made hazy by the effects of the poison.

“Haeseon,” she said, or attempted to; his name left her as mere croak of a sound, as if her throat had been torn and clawed at. She winced, her neck straining with pain, but the smile stayed on her lips all the same. “It’s Haeseon, sweet Haeseon.”

“Yes,” Haeseon said and clutched her hand. When she chuckled, the sound had tears rising to his eyes. They were not of relief, but caused by the pain it inflicted on him to see her in such a state, weakened to the point her mind was not her own. “It’s me, Talya. I’m here.”

“Haeseon,” she said again, slurring. Her gaze drifted from his face, but she did not seem to realise it, staring firmly up into the ceiling as if she could see him there. “You can hear it too, can’t you, sweet Haeseon? I know you hear it, I know you do.” She blinked slowly and giggled to herself once more, the sound tapering off into a gasp as another spell of pain went through her body. “I know it.”

Haeseon merely shook his head, fretting his voice would come out weak should he raise it now. He squeezed his friend’s hand and gave it a light pat, but the instant he attempted to let her go, if only for the sake of brushing the hair out of her eyes, Talya gripped onto him with bruising strength, the whole of her body going rigid. “Talya, what—”

“I know you hear it,” the Northern Cardinal whispered, a feverish smile still playing at her lip. “I know you hear it, sweet Haeseon. The heart in the mountain.” Her grip slackened and she fell back against the floor, chuckling to herself, her head lolling to the side. “I hear it. I hear it in the mountain, I hear it in the ground, and,” she closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, “I hear it in Haeseon. I do, and you hear it too. I know it.”

“What’s happening to her?” Haeseon asked of the vǫlva, his voice high with worry. “Why is she like this?”

The seer only shook her head and placed her hand over Talya’s eyes, holding it there until the Cardinal’s body once again lost whatever small amount of strength it had regained. Her smile slipped from her face and her hand fell from Haeseon’s, and she was unconscious once more, stirring only with her flares of pain.

In the end, Haeseon received no answer beyond that which Talya had given him amidst her own delusions. He sat by her side for what might’ve been hours and waited, for what, he wasn’t certain himself, but for every time he repeated her feverish words to himself, the harder it became to ignore the distant sound that she had named for him.

The heart in the mountain called to him even now, but he pretended he could not hear it, hoping and praying it would leave him be for long enough to see his friend return from the brink of death.

-

so.

so, um

that was the plot hole thing

talya having a sister, that was the plot hole i mentioned a few weeks back. like in the revised version of tStS, talya mentions her to haeseon when he stays behind with her while the crew sails to hong kong to rob that jeweller and draw in son oseong. it's just a brief mention, not at all supposed to be important for the time ('s not relevant at all in the first book) but it was meant to establish the fact that she did indeed have a sister

then all the mentions of hel resembling talya would've made more sense and been a bit more... uh, they would've given more hints about hel's actual identity?

yeah ._. i said i'd add this detail to tStN as well, and if you didn't manage to find it, it's in the first half of chapter 7, when they're talking about hel

once again, i'm sorry for making a mistake like thisjshdjsdh it's such an avoidable thing uGH IT STILL BUGS ME SO MUCH AHHHHHHH

i hope it didn't ruin the immersion or you guys' enjoyment of this book's storyline >.<

on another note

tHE HEART IN THE MOUNTAIN I CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE FINALLY GETTING TO THAT PROPERLY OMG I'M SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS PART OF THE STORY AND WHAT IT ACTUALLY MEANS AND WHAT IT HAS TO DO WITH HAESEON OH MY LORD JAYSUS

*U*

also like the next chapter in general has me screaming already and i haven't started writing it yet. that's how excited i am about what's going down in it sO YEAH :D:D::D LOOK FORWARD TO IT

also also this volva is highkey shady okay what does she know how much does she know what is she not saying uGH

also also also freyr showed his ugly mug for like 2 seconds this chapter and that was enough to piss me off -_____-

bUT ANYWAYS

see ya next week!!!

(ps. yoongi going to see that baseball game and getting to meet his hero player is the most wholesome thing i've seen this year i love him so much oh my god he looked like he had so much fun uwu)


	31. chapter 30 - Amidst Their Chaos

i'm like half an hour late bUT WHO CARES I LOVE THIS CHAPTER FOR LIKE SEVEN DIFFERENT REASONS OKAY I JUST—UGH

okay so when you read this line—"I need to speak with the songbird.” —you gotta put Yoongi's "So Far Away" ft. Jin and JK on and just replay that until the end. ok? ok!

LES GO!!

-

When Seunggi came sneaking into the infirmary, Haeseon didn’t know how much time had passed. He had sat in silence by Talya’s side and gone over what the vǫlva had told him over and over in his mind, until he’d become so distant he did not notice the quartermaster’s presence until he sat down behind Haeseon and wrapped his arms around his chest.

With a start, Haeseon turned and nearly knocked his jaw against the edge of Seunggi’s golden mask. “Gi,” he said and craned his head in attempt to better see his friend’s face. The quartermaster did not make it easy; he pressed his face against Haeseon’s shoulder, the mask digging uncomfortably into his skin. “Seunggi, what—”

“Is it true?” Seunggi’s voice was quiet and quivering, and Haeseon realised he was crying. “Is it true, what Jihan says?” he asked. “Is Hisashi dead?”

Haeseon’s heart sank like a stone in his chest, only to be replaced by a by now familiar ache. “It’s true,” he murmured and turned back around, if only so he could rest his head against his friend’s. “Elyas Lowe used his Blessing to try and make Yeonshin kill me, but Hisashi came between us.” He swallowed against the thickness in his throat and did his utmost not to cry. He had cried so much already, there were hardly any tears left in him. “He saved me.”

Seunggi’s arms tightened around him, his face pressing harder against Haeseon’s shoulder. “We can’t give him a funeral,” he said through his tears. “We can’t—we need to send his body back to the sea, b-but Jihan said it was gone from the fortress where he…” He snivelled and emitted a sound like a whimper. “Where he fell.”

As carefully as he could, Haeseon loosened the quartermaster’s grip on him and turned in his seat so he could properly pull him into his embrace. “It was,” he said and pressed his lips against the top of Seunggi’s head, next to the gilded flower he had weaved into his hair. “But we’ll find it. When Hel has been defeated, we’ll find him and give him a proper funeral. Even if we have to search the whole of this country to find him.” He swallowed thickly and held his own tears at bay for the sake of letting his friend cry for as long as he needed. “He deserves it.”

Seunggi only nodded against his chest and said nothing more, silent in his grief. His hands trembled where they clutched at Haeseon’s robes and his frame trembled with his tears, but he did not cry out or weep. Haeseon worried the quartermaster was berating himself for what he had done to Hisashi months and months ago, when he had taken to the whip for discipline, and swore to himself he would be strong for his friend should he crack and confide in him.

They sat in silence for longer than Haeseon could count and would have remained that way until the sun had fallen and risen again, but they broke apart when a commotion rose from outside the infirmary doors. The speakers’ voices were muted, but they grew louder for every word, until it sounded as if both parties were moments away from screaming.

“What’s going on?” Haeseon asked of an equally bewildered Seunggi, and when the August’s deck creaked with movement from dozens of feet hurrying towards the agitated voices, the two of them rose as well. Haeseon threw a quick glance at Talya and then at the vǫlva, whose eyes were trained on the Northern Cardinal, uncaring, before making for the door to see what the commotion was all about.

As soon as he pulled the doors open, he startled at the sight of what looked like the whole of the August’s crew flocking around the main mast, in front of which Jihan stood, his posture rigid and unyielding before Freyr, who looked just about crazed with anger. “How dare you!” the boy shouted and pointed at the captain as if his hand was a sword to run through him. “I don’t care who you are, Cardinal or no, how dare you make such claims about things you know nothing of?!”

“I know plenty!” Jihan bit back, every bit as fiercely. Rage marred his face and twisted his features into a snarl, his voice echoing over the sea. “It isn’t as if you’ve made a single fucking effort to hide your hatred for everyone here!”

“What’s happening?” Haeseon asked of Daewon, who stood closest. Freyr looked moments away from lunging at Jihan, with only Ahrim to hold him at bay, although she was furious herself, staring at Jihan with murder in her eyes. Opposite of them, Xiao’s shoulders were hunched forward as if he was preparing himself to call on his Blessing, and by his side, Lucya’s hand rested upon the grip of her crossbow. “Why are they—”

“She’s my mother!” Freyr screamed, silencing Daewon before he could so much as part his lips. “Why would I ally myself with someone who wants to see her dead?!”

Haeseon’s eyes grew wide with shock and he turned to Jihan at the same time as the captain fired back. “Tell me why you wouldn't!” he barked. “You’ve done nothing to prove the opposite! You’ve been nothing but hateful towards all of us since the first day you arrived, the songbird more than anyone! For all I know, your goal in all of this is to see us dead and throw your mother from her northern throne!” He scoffed, the sound harsh and full of loathing. “Sabelsdottír herself even said she looked forward to the day you would challenge her for command of the North.”

Freyr shook his head with an expression of incredulity, but the disdain he attempted to muster would not come, lost as he was in his anger. “That’s not what she means!” he yelled. “She’s never—”

“I don’t give a fuck what she means!” Jihan had always been frightening to behold in the throes his rage. There was a dreadful strength to him in moments like these and a ruthlessness that seeped off of his person and made him tower over those poor enough to have provoked the deepest reaches of his wrath. Even now, he silenced Freyr with ease, the sheer amount of strength in his voice drowning the northern boy’s.

“You have nothing to defend yourself with, Sabelsson!” he said loudly, every last syllable heavy as stone. “Every damn time things have gone to shit for the rest of us, you have either been conveniently off doing gods know what, or you’ve been the one leading us head first into danger! You spoke with Hel when you and the songbird met her in Svalbard! When he tried to warn Talya and dissuade you from climbing the glacier, it was you who insisted we carry on as planned! After we’d made our plans to lay traps around Ísafjördur, you took to the sea and was absent when Elyas Lowe bypassed the snares and caught my men, and even mere hours ago, you didn’t come ashore when Hel sailed her ship through the air to kill your mother!”

For every occurrence the captain mentioned, the colder Haeseon grew, a horrible sense of dread clawing at him from within. He stared at Freyr, his breath caught in his throat as he tried to deny it in his head. It couldn’t be true, surely, it wasn’t, but for every accusation Jihan threw at the boy, the more sense it made, no matter how harrowing of a thought it was

The thought that Freyr had betrayed Talya and allied himself with Hel in the battle for the North.

“I fired at Hel’s ship to keep her from pursuing us!” the boy shouted, the whole of him trembling with rage. “I wouldn’t have done that if I had allied with her!”

All around him, Talya’s men stood in waiting much like the August’s crew did for Jihan, but while Jihan’s men looked to him for guidance, the northerners looked at Qasim, who stood at the edge of the circle that had formed around the two arguing captains. He was silent and pale, a tautness to his jaw the likes of which Haeseon had never seen on him before. The whole of him was rigid as he stared at his son, who was truly like a child just then, a little boy lashing out when backed into a corner, simply because he did not know any better than to be angry.

“For all I know, you firing at her ship could’ve been a way for you to mask your true allegiance!” Jihan spat and crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “To ensure you could follow us and see through the task Hel had failed!”

Freyr scoffed, but the desperation in his voice failed him. “That’s not how it is!”

“You’ve given me no reason to trust even a word that comes out of your mouth!” Jihan’s words were like the rumble of a storm, like thunder, loud and churning. “There is nothing about you and your behaviour that would convince me you’re not a traitor!”

“I’m not!” Freyr screamed, his voice breaking with how loud he made it, as if it would convince anyone aboard the August.

“I don’t believe you!” Jihan shouted and took several steps closer to the boy, who reared back like some injured creature. “To me, you’re a traitorous bastard who’s come uninvited onto my ship and schemed to hurt those aboard it!”

Through his horror at what he was hearing, Haeseon dimly realised Freyr looked like he was moments away from crying, tears of anger having risen to his eyes.

Before Freyr could form a retort, Ahrim left his side and lunged at Jihan, a sound of outrage passing her gritted teeth. She swung her right arm at the captain, her limb turning sharp as steel halfway through the air, but Jihan caught her wrist before she could strike, his prosthesis withstanding the sharpness of her Blessing’s changing. “You don’t know what you speak of!” Ahrim cried shrilly, fighting the captain’s grip with all she had. She looked every bit as angry as Freyr was, thrashing and growling like an animal. “My captain is not a traitor!”

“Yet he would gladly stand by and watch you kill me,” Jihan hissed, venom in his voice. He shoved her back and she fell to her knees by Freyr’s feet, and before she could rise again, Jihan turned to his men. “Put both of them in the brig! I want a guard on them every waking moment, and I want their ship tower and supervised!”

Daewon and Xiao moved as one, the latter looking grimly content to do as told upon learning the truth of Freyr’s disdainful behaviour. When he realised what was about to happen, the boy turned to Talya’s men and spoke to them in their tongue; while Haeseon could not understand what he said, the commanding tone of his voice was clear as day, as was the way he pointed at Jihan and his men.

With little hesitation, the northerners reached for their weapons, but as quickly as the dreadful moment had come, it was shattered by Qasim, who finally raised his voice to interfere. He addressed the men of Talya’s crew—of his crew—and they stood down, however reluctantly, and when Freyr turned on his father, Qasim, silenced him with naught but a look. “Do as commanded,” he said stiffly, “until your mother wakes to deal with this mess.”

Freyr looked as if he’d been struck across the face, betrayed by those he’d imagined would stand by him no matter what he had done. Upon realising he had lost, he turned around in a last, desperate search for aid and looked at Haeseon.

Neither of them said a word. Haeseon could do nothing but stare at the boy, the whole of him crippled by the truth of his actions. There was nausea brimming within him as well, brought on by the memories of how fondly Talya had spoken of her son, unknowing of the way in which he had broken her trust.

With his teeth bared in anger, Freyr turned to Jihan once more, but before he could say as much as a word, a new voice rose from the doorway of the infirmary. Every pirate aboard the deck turned to look at the vǫlva, who had donned her mask once more and appeared wholly unperturbed by the fierce argument. “Go with them, boy,” she said to Freyr, who cowered at once, as if his anger had shrunk against his will. When she looked at Ahrim, the girl cast down her eyes to the deck, no matter how much it seemed to pain her to do so. “There is nothing you can do or say to change what will happen now. Go, before all of us will suffer the cost.”

She turned to the northerners and spoke to them in their tongue, and as if they’d been struck by some invisible force, the lot of them turned meek, nodding and muttering amongst themselves even as they threw cold looks Jihan’s way.

Daewon took hold of Freyr and Xiao led Ahrim, disappearing down the companionway to take them to the brig. A few more of the August’s crew followed with promises to take first watch. Once they were gone, the deck was made eerily silent, as if the bout of shouting had never happened to begin with.

Qasim was the first to speak, his words every bit as tense as before. “I’ll tell his crew what happened,” he said and made for the rail to signal Freyr’s ship to sail closer, but the vǫlva stopped him with a hand on his arm before he could get very far.

“They will hate you should they hear from you that you allowed your son, their captain, to be taken prisoner,” she said.

The laughter that rose to Qasim’s lips was bitter, wholly without glee. “I’m sure my son hates me enough already,” he said. “His crew would only make a small addition.” Contrary to his words, he stood down and let the vǫlva pass so she could flag down the ship in his stead, her intentions of boarding clear. Qasim said nothing more, only threw a brief glance Haeseon’s way before steering his steps towards the fore, where the rest of Talya’s crew had meandered off to.

Only once the lot of them had gone did Jihan break out of his state of rigidness, although he did not quite let his tension fall. He turned away from the scene of their argument and halted mid-step as if he only now realised Haeseon was there, his eyes growing wider by a fraction upon the sight of him. He only looked at him for a long moment before turning to Seunggi, whose good eye was set on the companionway, scowling in the wake of Freyr’s capture.

“Gi,” Jihan said, frowning when his brother showed no reaction. “Seunggi.” When the quartermaster finally turned his way, it was with reluctance, as if he was loathe to cease his glaring. “Will you check on Jun and Yeonshin in the galleys? I need to speak with the songbird.”

For a moment, Seunggi only looked between Jihan and Haeseon before nodding, his shoulders slumping slightly as he did. “Be patient,” was all he said before hobbling his way towards the galleys on his healing leg, words that could’ve been meant for either one of them.

Jihan said nothing when he walked up to Haeseon and took hold of his hand, nor when he led him to his quarters. Haeseon went easily, still overwhelmed by the shock of what had happened. Only once the doors closed behind him did he break out of it, just in time to watch the captain cross the room and sink onto the edge of the bed, his frame crumbling as he finally let his tension go alongside a heavy, weary sigh, burying his face in his hands.

Haeseon went to him at once, following after him until he was standing in front of him, so close he could place his hands on Jihan’s shoulders. The captain emitted an incoherent noise upon the contact yet did nothing to push him away, so Haeseon waited, content to work through his lingering shock while Jihan dealt with his own.

When the captain finally spoke, his voice was laced with exhaustion. “Do you think what I did was wrong?” he asked without looking up.

“No,” Haeseon said, although he could not be as certain as he would’ve wanted to be. Not yet. “I don’t want to imagine it’s true. It would be terrible if it was, for Talya’s sake, but I trust your intuition far more than I trust anything about him.” It made him cold to imagine, but as Jihan himself had said, there was nothing about Freyr that could convince any one of them otherwise. “Talya’s heart will break when she finds out,” he mumbled, to himself rather than anyone else.

Jihan said nothing, but reached out for Haeseon and took hold of his hand once more. His touch was careful as he guided him to stand between his legs, until they were so close the captain could wrap his arms around Haeseon’s waist. His shoulders lost more of their tension, as if their proximity alone was healing for him.

“I’d had enough,” he said and shook his head. “These are no new suspicions of mine; ever since you were taken by Lowe, I knew there had to be someone feeding Hel the information she needed to stand two steps ahead of us at every damn turn. Every time we’ve met her, she has been the one with an advantage, and I—it didn’t make sense.”

His hands tightened sporadically around Heaseon’s waist, as if it was an exercise of sorts to help him be calm. “I lashed out at Sabelsdottír after you, Yeonshin, and Hisashi were taken,” he said in a mutter. “It wasn’t her fault, I knew it, but gods, how many times have I nearly lost you since we came to the North? You’ve come close to death again and again, and—” He gritted his teeth around the words that hurt him most. “Hisashi is dead,” he hissed, “and the only one who could’ve told Lowe where you were so he could capture you, the only one who wasn’t with us at the time is Sabelsson, him and his crew.”

Haeseon wanted to comfort him, to help him be calm, but when he parted his lips, there were no words he knew to speak that could do for Jihan what he wanted them to. He felt the captain’s ache in his own bones, along with a darkness gnawing at the corners of his mind, the makings of anger aimed at he who was a traitor, but he pushed it away in favour of his worry. Instead, he moved his hands to the back of Jihan’s head and gently pulled him against his chest, until there was little space left between them.

The captain’s breath steadied slowly, and for long after, both of them remained silent. There were a thousand words left unspoken, Haeseon knew it, but if his beloved could know peace even for a moment, he would wait for as long as that moment lasted.

“How is she?” Jihan asked at last, his voice heavy with his exhaustion. “Sabelsdottír. Will she recover?”

Haeseon hesitated for only a moment, wondering whether or not Talya’s secrets were his to tell, but he had promised himself he would tell the captain everything, always, and that was what he did. He told Jihan what the vǫlva had told him of Talya and the woman they had believed to be Hel. Haeseon told him of the woman’s Blessing and what it was that had driven her to swear vengeance on the Northern Cardinal, and when he was done, the captain sat in silence for a long moment, just as Haeseon had when he’d first heard.

Finally, he heaved a weary sigh. “So all of this is a family feud,” he said and closed his eyes as if in a silent plea for patience. “Sabelsdottír and her sister, and Sabelsson. The Valkyrja’s blood must be laced with insanity.” It was a jest, but his expression was too grim for it to bear the lightness it should’ve. “If what the shaman said is true and Hel is Sabelsdottír’s sister,” he said, “that bastard’s betrayal makes even more sense. Hel—or was it Saga you called her—covets their mother’s Blessing, and Freyr is the only one who can give it to her. With his own power, he can tear Talya’s Blessing from her and pass it to her sister.”

The chill in Haeseon’s bones sank deeper still and made him shiver. It made him ache to think of what Talya would say once she’d recover, how devastated she would be to learn of her son’s betrayal.

Jihan pulled him closer upon his shudder, until Haeseon had no choice but to brace his knees on the bed and straddle him. It had him trembling all over again, not of distress or the cold, but by the way his body’s tension gave in and crumbled in his beloved’s embrace. Last time he’d felt it, he had been wound too tightly by the sorrow of Hisashi’s death to properly bask in Jihan’s closeness, so he did it now, quivering with relief.

Jihan rested his brow against his chest and sighed again, all but exuding his tiredness with naught but his breath. He had not slept for days, Haeseon knew, likely not since the night before their argument, and he, too, seemed to lose some of his distress only now that they could be close once more. He breathed slowly, his shoulders rising and falling, until Haeseon began to wonder if he had fallen asleep. Carefully, Haeseon raised his hands and carded his fingers through the captain’s hair, drawing comfort even from such a simple touch.

Before he could make sure, however, Jihan spoke, however silent it was. “Will you tell me about your ear, songbird?” he asked. His words were muted against Haeseon’s robes, but the underlying patience, practiced as it was, was clear all the same. “Does it hurt?”

“No,” Haeseon said at once. He knew the captain was attempting to understand him rather than interrogate him for the choice he had made, and he loved him for it. He loved him so much. “It never did hurt. I’m still not certain why I can no longer hear, but I know it happened when I was struck by the storm’s lightning. It may have been the noise or the lightning itself, but I remember none of it. It was all…” He ran his teeth over his lips and swallowed, remembering a flash of light and pain and darkness. “It all happened so fast.”

Jihan hummed and sat in silence, contemplating. His breathing remained steady and his limbs loose around Haeseon’s waist, so Haeseon merely waited, content to give him all the time he would need. “It must’ve been frightening,” he murmured. From his voice, it sounded as if he was the one who was afraid now.

Haeseon considered for a moment to deny it, if only for the sake of dispelling his beloved’s worry, but he knew it was not what Jihan would’ve wanted. “It was,” he admitted quietly instead. “I can still hear well enough, but it was—my right side felt numb. I was supposed to hear properly, but suddenly every sound and noise coming from my right was distant, mute, as if someone had pressed their hands to my ear to dull my hearing.”

It was an odd thing to say as he had lost all sound to his right, but he did not know the words to properly describe how it had been. “Suddenly half of what I’d heard was gone,” he said and frowned at how heavy it felt to speak of it. He had kept it to himself for so long, the secret had become easier to bear than the truth, thus the words gave him more distress than the thought of his partial deafness had done. “Even my own voice sounded different to my own ears after that.”

The captain’s embrace tightened around him. “I wish you had told me,” he said. Truly, he sounded as if he was the one suffering, as if Haeseon’s ache was his own, only ten times as strong. “I wish I could’ve helped you. I don’t know what I could’ve done, but I could’ve…” His voice tapered off and he pushed himself more firmly against Haeseon’s chest. “I wish I had known.”

“I know,” Haeseon said, guilt gnawing at him. Guilt for keeping it a secret, guilt for causing Jihan such distress. “I wish you had known, too, now. It would’ve been enough, if you had known.” He drew a breath, trembling. “It would’ve been easier.”

“I can’t say I don’t understand why you hid it from me,” the captain said. “From us. I would’ve done the same, but—” He sighed and finally sat upright once more, although he did not meet Haeseon’s eyes. His brow was knitted tightly into a frown, his lips curled down as if he was agitated, and Haeseon remembered what Yeonshin had told him before they’d been kidnapped. “I suppose it makes me a hypocrite to wish you had told me,” Jihan said with a huff to mask just how miserable his voice had become. “I only—I wish I could become someone you’d want to tell your fears. Someone you’d trust to help you bear your burdens.”

“I do, Jihan,” Haeseon said without pause. “You already are that person to me.” He moved his hands from the captain’s hair to his cheeks and coaxed him into raising his face when he refused to do it on his own, until their eyes could meet. “I swear it, you are. There’s no one in this world I trust more than you, no one I—even if I didn’t love you as I do, you would still be the first one I’d come to when the world would feel too heavy.”

Jihan’s gaze flickered between Haeseon’s eyes, searching, but his expression did not change, and it made Haeseon ache to see. He needed his beloved to understand that it had not been his fault. Nothing had been his fault. “It was stupid of me to wait for so long,” he said firmly and shook his head when Jihan parted his lips, likely to protest. “I don’t even know why I didn’t tell you. It made sense to me at the time, but now, I can’t remember what scared me so much. I can’t think of a good enough reason anymore.”

The captain pressed his lips together, his facade cracking, and Haeseon leaned forward until he could press his brow against his beloved’s. “It’s you, Jihan, you’re the one I want to tell everything,” he whispered. “It’s always you. Even after you became angry, it was still you I wanted to go to for comfort. It was selfish of me to want to be near you after I had hurt you, but—” He closed his eyes, basking in Jihan’s presence. “Even though we were in the some room, I missed you more than I could bear.”

A tired smile broke through the captain’s misery and he raised his hands to cover Haeseon’s, only holding onto him. “I missed you, too, songbird,” he murmured. “Gods, I missed you so much. As soon as I walked away from you, I wanted to turn back again, but I was…” For the umpteenth time, he sighed. “I was angry. With myself more than you.”

Haeseon sat back upright at that and shook his head, thumbs brushing over Jihan’s cheeks. “You should’ve been angry with me,” he said, pursing his lips when the captain emitted a quiet sound like a snort. “I was angry with me. I hurt you and made you feel guilty where you shouldn’t have. It was my fault alone, Jihan, never yours.”

There was a desperation buried deep beneath his words, a need for his beloved to realise there was nothing he should’ve felt responsible for. “I convinced myself my deafness would be a burden to you and the others,” he said, “so I decided to bear that burden alone. I shouldn’t have.” He looked between Jihan’s eyes, ensuring he was listening, that he did not miss even a single word. “It was my fault, not yours.”

The captain gazed up at him as if he was contemplating something, as if he was enraptured by whatever it was that went through his head. “You trust me,” he said at last. It was a statement, not a question, yet it bore a sense of insecurity, as if it was not a truth he himself was certain of.

“Yes,” Haeseon said without hesitation or doubt. “There’s nothing you can do to make me trust you than I already do, because there is no more than this.” He couldn’t remember when they had last kissed, it had been so long, but he leaned down and pressed his lips against Jihan’s and hoped with all his might he could convey just how deeply his love for the captain ran. When they parted, Jihan’s eyes were wide and his lips remained open, and Haeseon smiled. “I trust you with my heart and soul,” he said, “because I know that in your hands, I will never be lost.”

The look in the captain’s eyes was reverent and full of awe, and glistening with unshed tears. He drew an unsteady breath and closed his lips to swallow. “Thank you, songbird,” he said when he found his voice once more, hoarse as it was, made so by the emotions coursing through him. “Thank you.”

Haeseon’s smile grew wider still. “What have I told you about thanking me?” he asked in an attempt to be teasing, although it was lost in his own overwhelmed state.

“You keep giving me reasons to thank you,” Jihan retorted without heat and leaned back against Haeseon’s chest. “What kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t thank you every chance I could?”

In spite of all that had happened, a quiet giggle rose to Haeseon’s lips, his heart made light for once in a long time. “A gentleman,” he repeated, his hands rising back to Jihan’s hair to play with the strands at his neck. “I always did hope whomever I’d fall in love with would be a gentleman.”

“You love me.” Just like his words about trust, Jihan spoke these quietly, as if it was a wondrous thing to him, nigh unfathomable. “Sometimes, I wonder what miracle made you love me, songbird,” he said, his voice hushed by his awe. “After all, there’s no salvation for me when my time comes. I’ve broken myself beyond repair. I will never be forgiven for who I am today, and at times, I can’t help but worry I’m tainting you, who are too good for the world you’ve been forced to live in.”

The smile fell from Haeseon’s lips, a frown spreading across his face upon his beloved’s sombre words. “Jihan—”

“But you,” the captain interrupted and pulled him closer still, “you love me all the same. You cling to the fragments of me, of my soul, and hold them together. You refuse to let me go.” His prosthetic limb rose along Haeseon’s back and held him more firmly, as if he was afraid he would vanish from the midst of his embrace. “You, who shine brighter than the sun, chase away my darkness and give me hope that maybe someone like me deserves to be loved by you. There are days when I can’t understand why, but you love me so fiercely I have no choice but to believe you.”

He shook his head and looked up at Haeseon, a small smile on his lips. “It’s overwhelming and absurd,” Jihan said, “but when you’re with me like this, I’m not afraid of tainting you, because you banish that which taints me.” He chuckled at his own words, as if he truly found them ridiculous, but the venerance in his gaze remained every bit as strong. “You’re worlds stronger than me, songbird,” he said, “in ways you can’t even imagine.”

“Jihan,” Haeseon whispered, although he did not know what else he wanted to say. There were tears in his eyes now, threatening to fall, and there was little he could do to hold them at bay as he stared down at his beloved.

“Perhaps it is selfish of me to even consider asking someone like you to be mine,” Jihan said and reached up to take one of Haeseon’s hands in his own, holding it with unbearable gentleness. “Nothing scares me more than the day my hell becomes yours. I hope it never comes. I hope you’ll never have to walk the same path as I do. I hope your light stays with you forever, because I don’t know what I’d do without it.”

He brought Haeseon’s hand to his lips and kissed the palm of his hand before pressing it back against his cheek, sighing as if the simple touch alone gave him relief. “It is definitely selfish of me,” he said with a huff of a chuckle, laced with wryness. “I have nothing to offer you but my heart, broken as it is, while you give back to me what I thought I would never have the right to desire again. I was content with the rest of my life revolving around protecting those the world so cruelly condemned, to care for them and give them a home.”

“They love you,” Haeseon croaked, his voice thick with tears. “I love you.”

The smile on Jihan’s lips was more precious than anything the world had to offer. “You’re my redemption,” he said. “You and everyone else aboard this ship. That’s why it hurts so much when…” 

His words faltered, as did his smile, and Haeseon knew he was thinking of Hisashi. “I know,” he said, tears spilling from his eyes when he nodded. “I know it hurts. It hurts me, too.”

Jihan closed his eyes and nodded, and drew strength from the kiss Haeseon pressed against his brow. “I’ve nearly lost you so many times,” he said. His hand trembled where it covered Haeseon’s, but he drew a steadying breath and made his voice strong. “And I love you, songbird, I love you more than I thought was possible. There’s a part of me that tells me I should let you go before I eventually drag you down with me, but,” he shook his head, a hopeless chuckle spilling from his lips, “I can’t bear the thought. I love you, and if you’ll let me, I will stay by your side until I draw my last breath.”

“You’re a fool if you think I wouldn’t let you,” Haeseon managed through a sob and used his free hand to smack at Jihan’s chest, wholly unable to summon even an ounce of strength. “A stupid, stupid fool.”

The captain smiled, a warmth to him that chased away even the bitter cold of the North. “The others tease us for it all the time,” he said, “but whenever I thought of it, I truly couldn’t think of a reason why we haven’t married yet. The life we lead is a dangerous one, and I’ve almost lost you more times than I want to remember. It may be desperate and it may be because I’m scared if I don’t do it now, I will lose the chance to, but I also know it is what I want.”

Haeseon’s breath came to a stuttering halt, his sobs ceasing to give way for his shock. “Jihan,” he said, and it was all he said, his eyes growing wide as saucers as he stared down at his beloved.

“Marriage isn’t done between men where we were born,” Jihan went on, “but the rules of those ashore mean nothing to us. We don’t have to abide by them, so,” he looked up and met Haeseon’s eyes with a smile, and even though the bitterness of what had been done to them and the worry of what was to come still lay etched on his face, the smile on his lips was wonderful, “if I asked you, would you marry me?”

Before he even knew what he was doing, Haeseon was nodding, so overwhelmed he could hardly speak. “If you asked me,” he whispered through his reverence, “I would.”

“Then I’m asking,” Jihan said, every bit as quietly.

Haeseon nodded again. “Good.”

It was slow, the spreading of the captain’s lips, as if he was afraid to allow himself the joy of the moment they shared. “Yun Haeseon, my songbird,” he murmured, never once looking away from Haeseon’s eyes, “would you give me your hand in marriage?”

The sound that rose to Haeseon’s lips was half a sob, half a breathless laughter. It made no sense to him, to feel such happiness amidst the chaos that still chased them now, but for that very moment alone, nothing else in the world matter. “I’ll give you my hand,” he said thickly, “and my body, all of me, forever if you’ll have me.”

Even though the tears in his eyes were escaping him now, Jihan tutted and shook his head. “It was a yes or no question, songbird,” he said, his attempt to be teasing lost in the tremor of his voice. “You can only answer yes or—”

“Yes,” Haeseon interrupted and smacked his chest again while he raised his other hand to wipe the tears from his face. “Yes, Jihan, of course it’s yes.”

The captain pulled him into a kiss and drew him so close not a hairsbreadth of space still remained between them. In doing so, he lost his balance and they tumbled backwards onto the bed, uncaring in their urge to kiss one another over and over again. “I love you, songbird,” Jihan whispered when they parted, breathless and gasping. “No matter what, I love you more than anything.” If possible, his words had more tears spilling from Haeseon’s eyes, all of which the captain caught with his hands. “I promise I’ll stop making the seas overflow.”

Haeseon managed a wet laughter and shook his head. “Don’t,” he said and pushed close, tangling his legs with Jihan’s and pressing his face against the crook of his neck. “This sea’s tide is made of joy. I don’t want it to disappear, no matter how many tears I have to shed to keep it strong. It’s the one that matters most.”

Jihan coaxed him to raise his head so he could kiss him once more, and again and again until their tiredness finally caught up with them. Somehow, they found themselves curled against one another beneath the sheets of their bed, their eyes slipping shut amidst sweet kisses and promises of the life they had sworn to share through oath.

For this blissful moment, they were at peace in each other’s arms, detached from the world that was theirs and the ache it brought with it. Until they’d wake to face the lives that weighed so heavily on them both, they were free, untouched, and happy.

-

THEY

ARE

ENGAGED

FUCK THEY LOVE EACH OTHER SO MUCH I CAN’T BEAR IT I ACTUALLY C A N ‘ T

also fUCK YOU FREYR HOW’S THAT FEEL THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR BEING SUCH A SHIT

dunno if anyone is surprised by this turn of events i mEAN I SURE AS HELL DIDN'T HOLD BACK WITH HIS ASSHOLENESS AND SHADINESS OR ANYTHING

haaaaaaaaaa

if this ain’t an emotional rollercoaster i dunno what is. i went from sad to rAGE to SAD AGAIN TO EXUBERANT

gOD i loved this chapter so much omg ;____; jihan's had the idea of their marriage since talya first teased haeseon for it, and then he's nearly lost haeseon twice, first in the glacier and then to lowe, so he's scared shitless he's actually gonna lose haeseon before he'd have the chance to properly marry him sO HE DID IT NOW ;___________;

THEIR LOVE MAKES ME CRY UGH

but like is it obvious the end of this chapter is like a big fat "enjoy this peace while it lasts lul"? did i make it too obvious? because i think i did and that's totally on purpose uwu


	32. ch. 31 - Shattered

mkay but could that title be any more worrying?? .__.

aNYWAYS this week has been one of the busiest of my life, what with me being interviewed for the news and then going to seoul and then coming back to yeosu and participating in a contest hhH i'm so tired i could sleep the whole rest of the weekend

bUT BEFORE I DO THAT

IT'S TIME TO BE SAD (and kind of happy also???)

Christopher Larkin - The White Lady

-

Haeseon paced back and forth in front of the companionway and its sloping ladders. There was an urge to him to go below deck, past the bunks and lower still, to seek out whatever truth he could possibly find about what had happened the day before. He had slept well for the first time in what had felt like years, lulled into a peaceful slumber by his beloved’s arms and his words about marriage.

The night's joy had lingered only until sunrise; dawn had brought with it the dread of their reality of sailing aimlessly along the coast of Iceland in hopes of fleeing beyond the reach of those who would see them dead. Jihan had risen early to relieve Daewon of his nightly duty at the helm, as well as to discuss amongst his crewmen what their following plans would be.

He had pressed a sweet, lingering kiss to Haeseon’s temple when he had stirred out of his sleep, and told him in a whisper to stay in bed for a little while longer. In his fleeting state of bliss, Haeseon had turned onto his stomach and drifted off once more, if only for another hour.

When he rose, he went to the galleys first and sat with Seunggi and Lucya for breakfast. The two of them were quiet, grieving; they had only heard of Hisashi’s death the day before, thus the wound was far fresher to them than it was to Haeseon. By now, the swordsman’s absence had become an ache in his bones rather than a seeping wound, yet it weighed every bit as heavy all the same.

He sat with Seunggi for a long while, humming softly under his breath while the quartermaster leaned against him. His friend lacked appetite, merely picking at his bowl of fish and potatoes and onions, so Haeseon took the spoon from him and fed him instead. He took care to remove every bone from the fish, and Seunggi ate it all, although he did so while crying.

Wistfully, Haeseon wished Kyujang had been with them. He knew the boy would be every bit as devastated to hear of Hisashi’s death, but just as he had when Rodel had died, the sailing master would’ve surely known how to make Seunggi smile better than anyone else could.

As if the quartermaster had heard him, he reached up and pulled the gilded flower from his hair. He fiddled with it in his hands, turning it this way and that and stroking his thumb over the shimmering petals, and slowly, his tears ceased to fall.

Still, he did not move his head from where it rested against Haeseon’s shoulder, and Haeseon made no effort to shrug him off.

Jun disappeared as soon as breakfast was done, and with no sign of Jihan, Haeseon fancied himself a walk along the August’s rail, hoping the sight of the cold northern sea would serve as some kind of distraction, any at all. After ensuring Seunggi was alright without him—Xiao had sat down next to the quartermaster and pulled him into his giant arms—Haeseon left the galleys, although he did not make it very far.

Upon the sight of the open companionway, he halted. A sourness settled in his stomach and he found himself instantly overcome by the urge to rub at the skin of his arms. Below deck lay the bunks, and beyond the bunks was the brig, where the man Haeseon hoped to get at least a semblance of sense from. Freyr’s betrayal had left him fidgeting with discomfort and anxiousness, and he wanted to know the truth of it.

The whole truth of it.

Haeseon hesitated for several long minutes before he finally found the determination needed to descend the ladders. He went below deck with purpose in his steps, muttering to himself about how he would refuse to leave until Freyr had given him the answers he wanted, but once again, he was stopped before he could make it even halfway to his destination.

At the bottom of the ladders, he found Jihan leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he gazed off somewhere along the bunks. The captain must’ve come down below deck to find him, worried as he always was, but when Haeseon walked over to him, he saw what had managed to distract his beloved.

Tucked away in the darkest corner of the bunks was Jun, seated on one of the beds and speaking lowly with Yeonshin. The surgeon was still as a statue and pressed up against the wall, eyes wide yet unseeing as he stared at his hands, clenched tightly in his lap. The look on Jun’s face was one of patience; he appeared wholly unperturbed by Yeonshin’s lack of response, be that verbal or physical, and continued speaking without pause about something Haeseon could not hear from where he stood.

“He has been like this before, once,” Jihan said upon noticing his presence. He did not look away from the surgeon, a frown marring his brow. “When he first came to us, he was like this. He had only just escaped from the king’s tyranny, and he came to me pleading with me to take him away.”

There was little Haeseon knew about the surgeon’s past, save for what he had heard from Seunggi once, when the quartermaster had told him of his and Jihan’s own history. He recalled the horrible things his friend had mentioned of what the king of Joseon had forced Yeonshin to do, and his sorrow for the surgeon grew tenfold.

“The king had always been unstable in his ways,” Jihan said solemnly. “Even to the people, he was—and still is—known for his temperament and crazed thoughts of grandeur. The only one who could control him was his queen, whom he had grown obsessed with, and so, when she became ill, the king’s obsession turned into desperation. He turned to the doctors and surgeons who lived at his court and demanded they heal her, no matter the cost.”

Knowing the turn the tale would take, Haeseon moved up behind Jihan and wound his arms around his midst, if only for something to give him support should he grow unsteady. The captain still did not look away, but he unfolded his arms so he could place a hand over Haeseon’s where they clutched at the front of his robes.

“Yeonshin told me it started well enough,” he went on. The same weariness Haeseon felt in his bones clung to the captain’s voice. “They made plans to identify the sickness first and then find a proper cure. They looked for sick people across the country with symptoms that matched the queen’s, and brought them to the palace to be examined. Most of them were dismissed as bearing an unrelated illness and sent back to their homes.”

“And the rest?” Haeseon asked quietly, although he already knew the answer.

“The rest stayed at court,” Jihan said. “At first, it was only for the sake of observing their illness and seeing the course it took, but as the queen’s condition grew worse, the king grew more desperate. He ordered his doctors to use whatever remedies they had on the people still staying at the palace, even though they had yet to identify the illness. Yeonshin tried to tell him giving the wrong medicine could be dangerous to the patient, but the king did not care.”

A tremor went through his prosthetic limb, its hand quivering where it rested over Haeseon’s. “No one dared refuse him. He was the king, and he swore to imprison those who did not do their all to find a cure for their queen, even if that meant causing dozens of his own countrymen to die.” He finally looked away from Yeonshin, sighing and shaking his head. “They did die,” he said, “one by one. Not all of them, but most. The medicine they ate was wrong. It attacked their bodies rather than whatever it was that ailed them, and they were considered failures for it.”

“Not all of them died from the medicine,” Haeseon echoed, his stomach turning. He pressed his face against the captain’s back and tightened his hold on him. “What happened to the rest?”

“They died, too,” Jihan said lowly, “but in a far more terrible manner. You see, some of the patients began to recover. It wasn’t due to any medicine, but they simply grew healthy once more on their own. The doctors determined it must’ve been because their illness was not the same as the queen’s, but when the king heard…”

For a moment, the words eluded him, and Haeseon all but wished he wouldn’t find them again. “His desperation to save his queen had turned into madness,” Jihan said. “He believed there must’ve been something inside the patients’ bodies that made them healthy again, and so,” Haeseon could hear the captain’s disgusted sneer from his voice alone and shut his eyes so he would not have to see it, “he demanded his doctors carve them open and take whatever that something was out of them so it could be given to the queen instead.”

The air in Haeseon’s lungs left him in a quivering exhale. He pressed his face more firmly against Jihan’s shoulder, as if he could hide from the horrible tale there. Upon his reaction, some of the captain’s tension slipped from his frame, and the hand he’d placed over Haeseon’s became gentle, drawing soothing strokes over the back of his hand and his knuckles. The fingers of his prosthetic limb brushed over the jade ring Haeseon wore, carefully tracing its edges. “I’m sorry, songbird,” he murmured.

“It’s not your fault,” Haeseon said and shook his head as best he could. “It’s not you, I only—it’s difficult to hear.” He swallowed thickly. “I can’t even imagine how difficult it must’ve been for Yeonshin.”

Jihan nodded. “Those who hesitated were beaten until they submitted,” he said, “and those who refused were executed. No matter how the doctors and surgeons pleaded with their king, he did not falter in his madness. He was ready to burn his kingdom to the ground should it mean his queen recovered.” He heaved another weary sigh. “Yeonshin told me he only held the scalpel once. He was in charge only of one surgery, but the gruesomeness of it was enough to make him decide to flee.

“All of this happened only a little while after I had taken to the sea with black sails. My infamy was growing fast, courtesy of Son Jukan, who had sworn to bring me back to be punished as a traitor.” He scoffed at that, a humourless sound. “As a member of the court, Yeonshin had heard my name in passing more than once,” he said. “He knew I had been a man of the law, and that I had forsaken the law and chosen a life free from the injustice of those the world considered justice. It was what he wanted as well, so he came looking for me and asked for a place aboard my ship.”

“And you gave it to him,” Haeseon said upon sensing the tone of self-deprecation in his beloved’s voice. “You gave him his freedom.”

“Yes,” Jihan conceded with reluctance, “but it was hard. He was like this then, too. He told me he could serve as a doctor, that he was a learned surgeon and could be the one to treat us should we come to harm in battle, but the sight of blood would paralyze him. His hands would tremble at any attempt to heal us.” He took his hand off Haeseon’s to run it through his own hair, an anxious tick of his. “I didn’t know him and he didn’t know me,” he muttered. “I didn’t know what to do with him.”

“But he became good,” Haeseon insisted. “He’s been good for years now, hasn’t he?”

“He has, but it was hard. We didn’t trust each other. I couldn’t help him the way he needed then,” Jihan said, frowning. “He had to overcome his trauma on his own.”

Haeseon tightened his arms around the captain and raised his head to kiss the back of his neck. “He won't have to this time,” he murmured. “This time, he has you to help him. You and everyone else. He's not alone this time.”

His beloved nodded, drawing strength from his words. “He has beaten his past once,” he said. “By all the gods who'd hear me, I hope he can do it again. Not because we need him to, but for his own sake.” He sighed for the umpteenth time and shook his head before gently freeing himself from Haeseon's embrace. “Come, songbird.”

While Jun looked up when they approached, Yeonshin remained unmoving, showing no reaction whatsoever when the cook ceased to speak. He didn't look up when the captain asked Jun about his condition nor when Haeseon took his seat on the bed by his side. He only continued to stare ahead as if he truly could not see a thing, unfocused and absent to what was happening around him.

Only when Jihan took a seat on the bed opposite of him did he stir. He blinked heavily, as if he was struggling to rid himself of his daze. “Yeonshin,” the captain said. He kept his voice quiet, and did not rush the surgeon when he did not immediately look at him. “How are you feeling?”

Yeonshin looked up at him slowly, and when he finally realised Jihan's presence, he winced as if he'd been struck and curled against the wall. He was quick to look away again, as if meeting the captain's gaze would hurt him; he reminded Haeseon of a small animal, injured and frightened and wholly without hope.

It made him ache to see.

“Have you eaten anything?” Jihan asked. He kept his tone calm even in the face of the surgeon's distress, keen on sparing him further anxiousness. When Yeonshin did not reply, the captain looked to Jun, who shook his head. “Are you hungry? Should I bring you something to eat?”

The surgeon pressed his lips together and shook his head. Truly, he looked like he was sick; the skin beneath his eyes was dark with exhaustion and he was pale and stiff as stone. The fragility of him was heartbreaking, a thought Jihan seemed to share.

“Yeonshin,” he said quietly, “will you look at me?”

Again, the surgeon shook his head. “I'm sorry,” he whispered, his voice small.

Jihan did not need to ask what it was he was apologising for. “You don't have to be,” he said and moved to lean forward in his seat, but changes his mind when Yeonshin shrank back, shying away from him. “No blames you for what happened.”

The surgeon shook his head and pressed a hand to his face. “I do,” he croaked. “I blame myself for it, because it was my fault.”

“It wasn't,” Jihan said. There was no agitation to his words, nor any distress; he was simply stating the truth he knew. “It was Lowe's fault, and he's dead for it.”

Yeonshin raised his head at that, meeting the captain's gaze for the first time. “He's dead?” he asked, as if he did not dare believe it. “Elyas Lowe is dead?”

“Yes.” Jihan nodded. “I killed him.”

Yeonshin looked like there was something he would've wanted to say, but in the end, he only pressed his lips together and looked away again, seeming more grim than before. “It doesn’t matter,” he mumbled. “Without me, Hisashi would still live.”

“You don’t know that,” the captain insisted. “It wasn’t you. The one who forces one’s hand to kill is the true murderer. It was true then, and it’s true now.”

Tears rose to Yeonshin’s eyes, his lips beginning to tremble. He said nothing, but his breath grew laboured with his building distress, until he was all but hysteric. “It was always me,” he said shrilly and raised his hands to his hair, tugging at the strands at his temple. “Always. I knew them, I knew their names and the names of their loved ones, those who were waiting for them to come home, a-and I—I couldn’t—” He drew a breath so sharp the very sound of it made Haeseon’s own throat ache. “I promised them they would go home, and I broke that promise,” he said, “just like I broke whatever promise I’d made to the ship and the crew when I killed Hisashi.”

He grew more frantic then and hid his face in his hands. “Please don’t send me away,” he pleaded, his voice high as a whistle. “Please, Jihan, please, I don’t know anything else. There’s nowhere else I can go, so please.”

Unlike he had been last time, Jihan was calm when he rose to his feet and stepped up in front of the surgeon. His expression was one of patience, but Haeseon could see the distress he hid beneath his facade and knew the captain was putting on a brave face for Yeonshin when he needed it most. “Look at me, Yeonshin,” he said and took hold of the surgeon’s hands, not to pry them away, but simply to touch him. “Look me in the eyes.”

Yeonshin shook his head in refusal and attempted to pry himself out of the captain’s hold, but Jihan did not falter. He waited, his grip remaining firm yet gentle all the same, until the surgeon had no choice but to look at him, eyes red-rimmed and glistening with tears. His breath came harshly and his frame was racked by his sobs, but once he met Jihan’s gaze, he did not look away again.

“I will never send you away,” the captain said. His words were slow and deliberate, and strong as they always were. “I don’t blame you for what happened, neither does anyone else aboard this ship. And it doesn’t matter if it takes you years to become better. Fuck, it doesn’t even matter if you can’t be a surgeon or if you can’t treat any of us every again. I will never send you away.” He squeezed Yeonshin’s hands in his own. “Tell me you understand.”

The whole of the surgeon was shaking and he looked all but desperate to withdraw back into the shell he had raised around himself, but with Jihan holding onto him and refusing to let him go, all he could do was nod. “I understand,” he croaked and turned his hands in the captain’s grip to return it, clutching onto him as if he was his anchor. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you are,” Jihan said, “although you have no reason to be.” When the surgeon still looked unconvinced, he arched his brow as if he was about to challenge him. “Did you want to do it? When the king ordered you to do those horrible things, did you do them willingly?”

Yeonshin shook his head vehemently, his face twisting in agony at the mere thought. “Never,” he hissed. “I pleaded with him to change his mind, I told him again and again it was wrong!”

“You did,” Jihan said and nodded. “Your hand was forced, Yeonshin, then and now. It isn’t what you would have done, ever. You’re not your father. I know it, and I know you know it, too.”

As if he had been defeated, Yeonshin heaved a quivering sigh and hung his head low, his posture slumping against the wall once more. In his lack of reply, Jihan turned to Haeseon and beckoned him, silent as he took his hand and guided him to stand in front of the surgeon.

As soon as he did, however, all of Yeonshin’s tension returned to him. He stared at Haeseon as if he was afraid, desperate to flee from the brig as if it was his life that was at risk now. For a moment, Haeseon’s chest filled with distress of his own, but upon seeing the guilt flashing across the surgeon’s face, he understood.

It was the thought that Haeseon would fear him after what had happened that frightened Yeonshin so.

Jihan moved aside to let Haeseon kneel in front of the surgeon. He went slowly and held Yeonshin’s gaze as he did, naught but the ghost of a frown marring his brow as he settled on the floor. As carefully as he knew how, he crossed his arms over the surgeon’s knees and rested his chin on top of them to show just how content he was in his presence.

“It wasn’t you,” he murmured. “I know it wasn’t, and I’m not afraid of you.”

Yeonshin looked as if he wanted to crawl away from him. His hands were clenched tightly around the sheets of the bed, but he remained seated where he was even if he couldn’t look at Haeseon.

“No one thinks it was you,” Haeseon went on, “not even Hisashi would think it. He saved me from Elyas Lowe, not from you. Hisashi knew it wasn’t your fault. He wouldn’t have done what he did if he had believed it was your fault.”

“You don’t know that,” Yeonshin said, but his voice was thin, as was his protest. “You can’t know it.”

A small smile came to Haeseon’s lips. “I can and I do,” he said simply, “because you’re not the kind of person who would hurt those you care for. I know you care for me and I know you cared for Hisashi, and he knew it as well. We all know it.” He leaned more comfortably against the surgeon's legs and closed his eyes, making himself as vulnerable as he could in front of Yeonshin. If words would not convince him, Haeseon would prove, by his actions, that he still trusted the surgeon with his life.

Yeonshin did not touch him as he once might've, but his grip on the sheets loosened once he realised Haeseon wouldn't leave. 

“Do you want to stay here?” Jihan asked of him. “You would have more privacy in the infirmary after Sabelsdottír has recovered.”

As if the mere through frightened him, Yeonshin shook his head, his gaze flickering nervously to and fro the captain. “I don’t—I can’t go there,” he said shrilly. “I can’t.”

Jihan accepted his refusal immediately and without question. “Then you will stay out of the infirmary for now,” he said, nodding. “Until you feel safe to go back there, you don’t have to set foot near it.”

The surgeon nodded as well, and nothing more was said after that. He couldn’t seem to calm down; the tremors still racked his frame and his breath remained uneven, so Jihan settled on the bed next to him and placed his hand on Yeonshin’s back, stroking it firmly up and down. The pressure of his touch allowed Yeonshin to draw reassurance from it, a gentle yet firm reminder that no matter what his fears were, the captain had sworn he would never be forced to leave.

Jihan did not rush him to ease out of the tension that crippled him. After several minutes of silence, he turned to Jun instead, and asked, quietly, that the surgeon not be left alone at any time, be it night or day. “He needs people around him to remind him he won’t be left behind,” the captain said. “He needs to know he’s not shunned for what happened.”

Jun nodded in agreement. “I’ll make sure the others now,” he said and took a few steps towards the companionway. “And in the meantime, someone else can stitch us up. Every last one of you swing around your swords well enough. Needle and thread can’t be that difficult to maneuver.”

The mention of treatment had Yeonshin growing stiff all over again, but as if Jihan had expected it, he carried on without pause. “As long as it isn’t Daewon,” he said with a snort. “He may have more wits in his head than the lot of us combined, but I doubt he’d know the eye of a needle from its tip.”

The tension vanished as quickly as it had come to Yeonshin’s frame. A sound half a sob, half a chuckle slipped from his lips at the captain’s jest, and while he still did not speak, he did not protest when Haeseon took hold of his hand, either. “I’ll have Seunggi keep you company,” he said and smiled up at the surgeon. “Once he gets you in his arms, he won’t let go again.”

Yeonshin nodded and his lips moved around silent words, which Haeseon imagined were of thanks or relief. Whichever way it was, he didn’t ask the surgeon to specify, only watched as he slumped back against the wall, his shoulders losing some of their tautness.

Haeseon did not count for how long he and Jihan sat down in the bunks. They were content to wait however long it would take, and when Yeonshin’s breath finally ebbed out and his eyes slipped shut in exhaustion, they lay him down properly on the bed to get some of the rest he so desperately needed.

“Will you watch over him for a little longer, songbird?” Jihan asked of him in a whisper. “Even asleep, he shouldn’t be alone, and I still need to speak with Daewon.”

“Of course,” Haeseon said and sank back into his seat next to the bed. “I’ll keep him company until he wakes, and longer still if he wants me to.”

Jihan offered him a small yet grateful smile and leaned down to kiss him. “Thank you, my betrothed,” he murmured and kissed him once more when Haeseon smiled as well, a flicker of joy brought on by the term of endearment. “I’ll ask Seunggi to join you here when he’s ready.”

Haeseon only nodded and waved him off before turning back to Yeonshin. He made certain the surgeon was properly covered by the blankets and furs of his bunk so he wouldn’t be cold even with the northern chill seeping in through the companionway. When he was done, Haeseon leaned back with a sigh and peered at Yeonshin’s face. His pale cheeks were marred by the tracks his tears had taken, but at least, he looked serene in his slumber.

Taking the surgeon’s hand into his own once more, Haeseon promised silently to himself he would let nothing disturb Yeonshin’s precious rest nor the fragility of his mind. He would nurse it until it was the way it had once been, and until the day came, he would keep the surgeon safe from harm, even if it was a goddess, false or no, who carried the threat.

No matter what, Yeonshin would be at peace. Haeseon would make sure of it.

-

:(

yeonshin :((

ugh the journey to recovery is gonna be so hard on him :((( with what happened with hisashi he did the one thing he swore to never do in the whole of his life aND I KNOW I'M THE AUTHOR AND IT'S ALL MY OWN DECISION BUT HECK IF IT DOESN'T HURT TO DO THIS TO HIM :((((

also in case the song choice confused you, it represents both haeseon and jihan’s calmness while speaking with yeonshin. it’s the calm reassurance they show him, the peacefulness they want him to find once more ;u;

also also freyr can still go suck a cactus even though he was just mentioned here in like one sentence >____>

also also also can all the fighting stop so jihan and haeseon can be properly engaged and all disgustingly sweet and in love like we all know we want them to be?? these poor babies (and every other poor baby in this whole goddamn book) deserve some peace and quiet >:T

#proteccjihae2k19

are we done with feels trips now i don't even know but we'll see on wednesday~ good night~~!


	33. ch. 32 - Child

so i suddenly realised i hate how the chapter titles look on my patreon page, just "tstn chapter bla bla" so uH i'm probably gonna go back and change them all this weekend, or at some point when i have time .__.

aNYWAYS, ON WITH THE SHOW

-

It took no small amount of persuasion for Jihan to agree with Haeseon going down into the brig on his own. Even though Freyr sat imprisoned by heavy iron bars, the captain was far from content with the thought of Haeseon being alone with him. He had offered to accompany him, even though he had more pressing matters to attend, but Haeseon had turned him down, sweet as he was being.

“You can never know the mind of a traitor,” the captain said when Haeseon insisted, although he looked defeated already, as if he knew nothing he’d say would sway him. “He may not be able to reach you, but in his presence, you could be in danger all the same.”

“I know,” Haeseon said, “but I want to try and understand. Talya is so, so important to me, and I want to know what made her son turn away from her.”

Jihan sighed and shook his head, but not in denial. “Don’t send away the guard,” he grumbled. Had the situation not been so grim, Haeseon might’ve thought he was pouting. “You can make him stand outside of the brig, but keep someone close in case that bastard…” His words tapered off with the way his lip curled down into a sneer. “He appears to despise you. I don’t know why, but if he would see you hurt, I don’t want him to have the chance.”

Nodding, Haeseon leaned close to kiss his beloved’s cheek. “I’ll be careful,” he promised and offered Jihan a smile that was far more reassuring than he felt. “I’ll stay by the door and won’t go near his cell. He won’t be able to reach me even if he’d try to.”

Jihan still looked uncertain, and Haeseon knew it was not him the captain mistrusted, but the prisoner in question. “If he does or says anything to you,” he said lowly, “I’ll use the iron bars of his cell to string him from the ceiling.”

“I know you will,” Haeseon said. His words were quiet and he squeezed Jihan’s hand, knowing his threat was true as could be. It was an unkind promise for an unkind prisoner, and it gave Haeseon some semblance of security even though it shouldn’t have. “That’s why I’m not afraid.”

It was only half the truth, he realised when he stood in front of the heavy door to the brig. He wasn’t afraid, but he was certainly nervous, if only for what he dreaded to find out. He knew Freyr did not like him, but thought the boy must’ve surely been willing to at least attempt to clear his own name from the accusation of treason.

With his heart hammering in his chest, Haeseon knocked on the door and stepped back to let it swing open. The pirate on guard was a man who served under Ravi, the master gunner. He looked to be in a foul mood, his face set in a scowl so deep it might’ve never unfurled, but upon sight of Haeseon, he lost some of his tension.

“Chodan,” Haeseon said and bowed his head in greeting, a politeness he still hadn’t forsaken even after so many months. “Are you alright?”

The man scoffed and threw a dark look over his shoulder into the brig. “Fine,” he said gruffly when he turned back. “You need somethin’, little bird?”

Contrary to when Freyr spoke it, from Chodan’s lips, the byname was far from disdainful; it was simply the name the crew had chosen for Haeseon after Jun had stated no one but him may call Haeseon canary. None of the crew had ever considered addressing him as songbird, like Jihan did, and so they called him little bird with fondness.

It gave him courage to hear. “I want to speak with him,” Haeseon said and nodded past him into the dim light of the brig. “Alone, if you may.”

At once, reluctance seeped into the frown on the pirate’s face. He glanced up into the ceiling, as if expecting to see someone standing there to watch, and even as he moved aside to let Haeseon pass, he looked far from content in doing so. “The cap’n better not hang me for lettin’ you in here on your own,” he muttered.

Haeseon smiled faintly at that. “The captain will have to deal with me should he try,” he said in an attempt at jesting.

Weak as the effort was, Chodan snorted all the same, even though the sound bore only a trace of amusement. “I’ll be outside, then,” he said. “Known on the door when you want to leave.”

“I will,” Haeseon promised and stepped inside. “Thank you.”

The only reply he received was the door closing behind him, and then there was only silence.

The August’s crew rarely used the brig for anything but storage of goods and supplies. For as long as Haeseon had been a pirate, there had never once been an occupant in one of the two cells; even when he had first been taken aboard the ship, the room had been filled mostly by crates full of cloth for bandages and rarities they had undoubtedly looted along their journey.

Only a lantern hung from the wall to cast light in the small room, but it was enough to illuminate both the iron bars and the prisoner they held.

Freyr was seated on the floor of his cell, back leaning against the bars and his knees pulled up against his chest to give him something to prop his elbows against. He looked like he’d been sleeping not much earlier, his brow still red where he had pressed it against his arms, but his eyes were sharp and full of suspicion as they glared up at Haeseon.

“What are you doing here?” he asked with no attempt to hide the disdain in his voice.

His tone made Haeseon falter in his goal, already knowing he was like to get nothing at all from the boy in terms of answers. Still, he refused to give in without a fight, and held his ground where he stood. “I’ve come to speak with you,” he said. “I want to know the truth.”

Freyr scoffed and looked away, his lips curling up into a smile full of nothing but contempt. “I have nothing to say to the likes of you,” he spat. “You and this entire ship could burn to ash for all I care.”

“Am I to assume it’s true, then?” Haeseon asked. His voice left him colder than intended; in his chest, the canary bristled with offense and distrust, and it seeped into Haeseon’s being like fire. “Is Jihan right about you?”

Again, Freyr emitted a sound akin to a snort, as if he had never heard something so dull. “If I was, do you think I would tell you?” he asked and looked at Haeseon with pity. “Do you think I would be so afraid and desperate simply because your beloved fox threw me in the brig?” He laughed humorlessly. “You truly are naïve.”

“I am,” Haeseon said. For as long as he had been on the sea, people had attempted to insult him by stating truths they believed he would take to heart. He found it a sorry thing to do; whether it be the Rabid Conflagration or Talya’s son, they would not hurt him by telling him what he already knew. “I’m so naïve I wanted to speak with you and listen to what you had to say for yourself. I wanted to give you the chance to defend yourself and prove us wrong, but as always, you choose to spit in the face of the hand I extend to you.”

“Don’t speak as if you’re above me, little bird,” Freyr spat, the whole of his frame growing tight with anger.

“I don’t think I’m above you,” Haeseon said. “All I speak is the truth. I told you, when we were trapped inside that glacier, that I was done attempting to make nice with you when you gave me nothing but disdain in return. That’s why I’ve come here under no pretence of friendship, but simply to learn the truth from you.” The makings of a sneer marred his face. “You seem to have no intention in proving Jihan wrong.”

Freyr only glared at him, his jaw locked yet moving around words he undoubtedly wanted to throw Haeseon’s way. Haeseon waited, although he was already longing to leave; his patience in the face of the boy had faded weeks ago. Even though he hadn’t wanted to believe the accusations Jihan had made about the son of his precious friend, there remained less and less cause for his tolerance for every passing second he spent standing in the same room as him.

Not until Haeseon turned to leave, ready and willing to give up on the task that was unlikely to be fruitful to begin with, did Freyr raise his voice. “How is she?” he asked stiffly. “How is my mother?”

Haeseon’s anger grew faster than he could’ve imagined it himself. “I’m not telling you anything about her,” he said, rounding on the boy. There was a protectiveness brought on by his Blessing’s nature, a fierce urge to keep Talya safe in any way he possibly could. “Gods know what you would make of anything I’d tell you. For all I know, Hel would know what I’d told you within a matter of hours.”

The boy’s expression grew dark with rage, a scowl twisting his features. “It’s all because of you,” he hissed and unfolded his arms so he could sit upright. Haeseon did not falter in his own discontent, standing firm even when Freyr rose to his feet, towering over him even from within his cell. “It’s all your fault.”

Within Haeseon’s chest, the canary met the boy’s challenge without hesitation. His skin prickled as if the feathers hidden underneath were about to grow and bristle. “What is?” he asked through gritted teeth.

“Everything,” Freyr said and came over to stand by the bars of his cell, clutching at them as if he hoped to bend them out of shape and let him pass. “None of this would’ve happened if you hadn’t come North. You ruined everything, and it’s your fault my mother is going to lose this battle.”

“She’s not going to lose,” Haeseon retorted. The anger in him was unlike anything he had felt in months and months; he did not like being angry, but the boy drew it out of him with both his words and his actions, past and present. “And if what has happened is anyone’s fault, it’s yours. I wasn’t the one who decided there would be nothing but disagreement between your crew and mine. I wasn’t the one who decided to betray Talya’s trust and turn to my enemies. That was your choice.”

Freyr’s knuckles grew white with how fiercely he gripped the iron bars. “Be careful, little bird,” he hissed with as much contempt as he could muster. “You don’t know anything.”

“I know enough. You’ve shown me enough.” He felt cold from within, anguish clashing with his resentment upon the thought of how the truth would hurt his friend. “Jihan said it, too,” he said shrilly. “You’ve done nothing to convince me or anyone else you’re still on our side.”

“I’m not on your side, Yun Haeseon.” There was naught but hatred in the boy’s eyes, nor in his voice when he raised it and said, “I despise you.”

“And I despise you,” Haeseon said at once and ignored the hollow sensation that seeped slowly into his chest. “You’re obnoxious and full of contempt, and I despise you.”

Freyr scoffed, as if his words were ones he had expected. “Wonderful,” he said dully. “So why are you here?”

Haeseon parted his lips and closed them again when the words would not immediately come to him. For a moment, he truly could not remember why he had come, as if his own distress had clouded his thoughts. “Because I wanted to see it for myself,” he said at last. “I wanted to see you for what you are. I wanted to see whether you feel even the slightest hint of remorse for what you’ve done.”

“Don’t speak like you know anything of what’s happening here!” The boy lashed out and rammed his fist against the iron bars, his voice rising alongside his rage. “This is not your home,” he spat, teeth bared and gritted. “These are not your seas, so don’t speak as if you know a single thing about me or my family!”

“I already told you,” Haeseon said, “I know enough. You’ve shown me enough.” A spell of tremors went through his hands and he clenched them tightly to make them be still. “I wanted to believe you wouldn’t have betrayed your own. For Talya’s sake, I wanted to believe it, but you don’t even try to deny it.”

“Did you expect me to beg?” Freyr asked with a manic laughter, as if the thought was the most ridiculous he’d ever had. “Did you think I would fall to my knees and plead with you to believe me? Are you so fucking arrogant?” He moved as if he wanted nothing more than to sink through the restraints of his cell so he could close his hands around Haeseon’s throat instead of the iron bars. “You wouldn’t have believed me either way.”

“You’ve broken her heart.” Haeseon’s anger was fading now, swallowed by the emptiness inside of him and leaving naught but his anguish in its wake. He felt nauseous and rendered weak by the truth of it all. “It will break her heart to know,” he said even as the boy’s outrage grew fiercer for every word he spoke. “Talya loves you so much, yet in return, you betrayed her for someone who would see her dead.”

“Shut up!” Freyr struck the bars again, only with far more strength. The sound echoed in the brig, as did his voice, but Haeseon felt no fear of him or what he could do. “Get out of here!” the boy shouted, rattling the bars of his cell as if it would make them move. “I don’t have anything to say to you, and I don’t want to hear whatever self-righteous shit you have to spew! Get out, get out!”

Without another word, Haeseon turned and went for the door. He did not turn back or spare Freyr another glance; he wanted nothing more then than to never see the boy’s face again. He was a traitor and a liar, and the truth of his actions would hurt Talya more deeply than Haeseon could ever forgive.

He pulled the door shut behind himself with more force than necessary, enough to startle Chodan, who had waited outside, yet did not immediately walk away. He heaved a sigh and leaned back, his eyes slipping shut as the remaining distress in him faded to give way for his exhaustion. When the guard asked him if he was alright, he only shook his head, wholly unable to even speak.

He was weary all the way to his bones. If only Talya was awake, he thought. Even though it would hurt her to know, surely, she would know what to do.

With another sigh, Haeseon pushed away from the door and made for the stairs, intent to find Seunggi and curl up against him in the bunks until the August’s crew’s sorry state seemed nothing more than a trifling nightmare.

-

One night at sea bled into days spent sailing without course. Jihan declared his reluctance to go ashore upon the very first morning, claiming it would be too dangerous with Talya still at the mercy of her poison and Hel—no one had taken to calling the woman Saga even after learning her name, seeing the former one far more befitting—still hot on their tracks.

Whenever Haeseon climbed up into the crow’s nest, he could see the hostile ship on the horizon through his spyglass. It had frightened him the first time, so much so that he had called down to deck in alarm, but her ship was not faster than the August or Freyr’s, and so it stayed a speck on the horizon for as long as they sailed onwards.

The course they followed was one along Iceland’s coast. They did not go ashore, but they wanted to remain close all the same should the tide turn and force them into battle. They sailed past Reykjavik on the second day at sea and considered drawing inland then, if only to seek the help of Iric Ried, but they did not know if he was still patrolling the waters, not to mention if he would agree to assist them without Talya to persuade him.

The initial tension of Hel’s ship’s constant presence settled during the second day, although it did not wholly fade. After all, there was naught the three crews could do but sit on their hands and continue on escaping all the while their supplies depleted. The northerners were hungry to take the battle to their pursuers, that much was obvious, but Jihan would not hear it, not for as long as Talya was unconscious and Freyr was locked within their brig.

The tension between the three crews grew worse for every passing day. Qasim did his best to placate the lot of them; he turned Freyr’s crew back to their ship whenever they came seeking answers and he kept Talya’s men in line, but the stress of it all was wearing at him. Haeseon had an inkling the man had never been forced to bear so much responsibility as he did now; without Talya to take the lead, Qasim appeared all but lost for what to do.

Haeseon knew the lack of his usual mirth was caused by what had happened to his son, even if he refused to speak of it or even show it on his face. Whenever the August’s crew spoke Freyr’s name, Qasim’s hands would slow around whatever he’d been doing, and he wouldn’t say a word of it, but Haeseon imagined it must’ve hurt.

It made the ache in his chest ten times worse.

The one who suffered the brunt of the three crews’ tension, however, was Jihan. Out of all of them, he was the only captain still in position to command, and the pressure of it weighed like a mountain on his shoulders. He was the one whose decisions set the course for the whole pack of them. It was he who had to find a solution before they run out of food and water.

“I think he’s lost his mind,” Seunggi whispered to Haeseon one evening, when the two of them lay curled up tightly against one another for warmth in the captain’s quarters. His good eye was peering at Jihan, who couldn’t settle his nerves and calm down. He paced back and forth between the organ piano and the cartography table in the middle of the room, halting at the instrument to play a handful of keys before going back to attempt to figure out where they could go and what to do.

“I can’t blame him, really,” Haeseon murmured in reply. His heart ached for his beloved, and he wished with all his might there was something he could’ve done to make it easier for him. “I think I’m losing mine as well, and I’m only me. I have no one looking to me for answers.”

The captain would not sleep, not even when Haeseon pulled him to bed and held him tightly in his arms to keep him from pacing in the chill of the night. He hardly ate, claiming the food was better spent on his crew, particularly Yeonshin, who had finally began eating once more. The surgeon didn’t join them in the galleys yet, but when Jun brought him food below deck, he ate, if only just a little.

There was worry written all over Seunggi’s face as he fiddled absently with the gilded flower in his hair. “I don’t know what will happen to us,” he said quietly and pressed his face more firmly against the crook of Haeseon’s neck. He attempted to shift the rest of his body closer as well, but winced when he moved his leg, which had still not healed the damage it had suffered when they’d been trapped within the glacier. “I know we will have to fight. Hel sees only us now. Before, she had other things to keep her from coming after us, but she’s not turning away now.”

Haeseon shook his head as best he could where he lay and placed a hand against the quartermaster’s cheek. “Nothing will happen to us,” he promised. “We will sail back home when all of this is done, and we will tell Kyujang of all the things we’ve seen here.”

It was not something in his power to swear. He knew Seunggi knew it as well, but his friend smiled up at him all the same, small as it was. “He’ll want to see it all for himself,” he said and held the flower tightly to his chest. “He’ll insist we bring him here one day.”

A hand slid into the quartermaster’s hair and tousled it gently. Haeseon peered up at Jihan, who looked tired beyond belief, yet still smiled when Seunggi turned his way as well. “Kyujang can map out the North for us,” he said. Even now, at a point where he was like to hate the North with a passion for all that had happened there, he spoke softly and without disdain for the sake of putting his brother to ease. “We’ll show him every corner of it, until he runs out of paper and quill to draw on.”

His words were sweet and Seunggi held onto them until he fell asleep, but as soon as he did, Jihan’s expression became grim once more, and he returned to his pacing.

On the fourth day, a northern ship approached the August from starboard side, flying white colours of surrender to signal their lack of hostility. With Qasim present to turn their words, the captain of the ship told them several western crews had crossed over to the northern seas to join Hel in her hunt for Talya. After news of Elyas Lowe’s death had spread, captains all over the West had grown adamant to show their worth as the new Cardinal.

Many of them believed it would be a fitting proof of strength to rid Talya of her head, and so they had come to join forces with she who had wanted it for ten years and more.

Jihan looked ready to tear his own hair out when Daewon raised the concern of being intercepted by a western ship amidst the game of chase they were playing with Hel and her crew. It seemed to cost him all the strength in the world to decline the northern captain’s offer of aid in battle; when the strangers had gone, Jihan disappeared into his quarters and slammed the doors shut so hard the hinges rattled.

When Haeseon went to find him not long after, the cartography table had been turned on its side, maps and quills and ink spilled over the floor. Jihan stood in front of the organ piano with crippling tension racking his frame, as if it was only a string of his will left to keep him from taking out his anger on the instrument as well.

It took an endless string of gentle, comforting words to coax the captain out of his daze. Haeseon took his hands and kissed them until they lost their tension, his prosthesis as well as his real one, and murmured endless praise for his effort to keep every last one of them safe. Jihan only shook his head, yet did not protest when Haeseon guided him to sit down on the stool in front of the piano. As if he’d lost all his strength by Haeseon’s touch alone, he did not resist when Haeseon guided his hands to the white keys and pressed his fingers down for him.

The smallest of smiles, full of fatigue as it was, graced the captain’s lips upon the nonsensical tune Haeseon made him play. The sight of it gave Haeseon hope and comfort, even more than the kiss and the words of thanks Jihan murmured against his temple.

When a frantic knocking rapped against the door later that night, Haeseon was all but ready to smack whomever it was that came looking for them. He had only just managed to make the captain sleep by quietly singing the song he had sung right before they’d shared their first kiss months and months ago. While Jihan groaned, stirring from his brief slumber, Haeseon stormed over to the door and tore it open, only to lose his ire upon the sight of the vǫlva of Talya’s crew.

“She is awake, Yun Haeseon,” the seer said and gestured down towards the infirmary. “Talya has woken, and she wishes to speak with you.”

-

mkay but like

i'ma start a petition to have jihan be wrapped up in all the softest blankets and tucked into bed all warm and comfy and let him sleep for five days and only wake him up to feed him the goodest food and hot tea with honey

:( he works so hard :((

#proteccjihan2k19

#jihanbestbigbrother2k19

#cuddlesforjihan2k19

#jihancaptainoftheyear2k19

:(

also, AS IF YOU NEEDED ANY MORE REASONS TO HATE FREYR LMAO HERE YOU GO, MORE REASONS FOR YA AYYYYY

seriously we're at the final arc of the book and he's still being a dICKHEAD >:T although i gotta say i absolutely LOVE exploring the side haeseon shows whenever he's around freyr *u* haeseon's someone who prefers to talk things through rather than get angry, he doesn't like to be angry and he doesn't like conflict, so he's always willing to give someone a chance, but with freyr, uGH it just becomes so difficult for him, and i really love going into that side of him

his anger is reluctant, but he's angry all the same, and he doesn't like it, but he doesn't like freyr either sO LIKE

he's feeling things he doesn't like feeling and he doesn't like it >:T

also

if i remember right, chodan's name in the first book was sungshin :D he's a super minor character and only appears once or twice in tStS, but i changed his name in the revised version because i wanted less characters whose name started with the letter "s"~~ and because i gave the "shin" from his name to yeonshinjshdjhs

next week’s chapter is titled “mother” to contrast with this one for the aesthetic and plot-related feels *U*


	34. ch. 33 - Mother

tissues tissues gotta grab them tissues and pack them for the feels trip yUP

ALSO BEFORE WE START

the magic shop muster.......... pictures of jimin and yoongi...................... serendipity jimin and agust d................................... listen there's that picture where they're almost touching, like they've got their hands raised as if they're about to touch, but they dON'T AND UGH I JUST—

it hit me in the feels with the strength of a thousand suns, yes it did.

YOONMIN IS LIFE

okay

but jihae nowsdjsdh :D

-

The tension aboard the August was all but palpable as Haeseon hurried towards the infirmary with Jihan and the vǫlva in tow. Not only were the August’s crew already on constant edge around their guests, but none of the northerners had dared set foot in the infirmary without permission from their seer, and upon seeing Haeseon be the first to be summoned before their captain, their already prickly demeanour grew sourer still.

Anxious as he was, Haeseon did not notice the haughty looks the northerners threw his way. All he cared about then was Talya and her wellbeing, the others’ discontent be damned.

When he reached the infirmary door, however, he came to an abrupt halt, as if he had been stopped by some invisible wall. His hands trembled where he had raised them to open the door. He hesitated, plagued by guilt and worry for how his friend would react upon learning the truth of not only what her son had done, but what they had done to her son in return. Perhaps she would hate him for it, and he would have to stand firm and explain his side to her all the same.

“Don’t look so frightened, songbird,” Jihan said. He stood behind Haeseon, one hand pressed against the small of his back for comfort while the other reached over to take hold of his trembling one, steadying it with his touch. “She has only me to blame for throwing Sabelsson in the brig. She won’t be cross with you.”

His voice was stiff with tension, but it soothed Haeseon all the same. He did not know whether Talya would want the captain there when she had called only for Haeseon, but whatever it was the Northern Cardinal had to say, Jihan needed to hear it as well.

With a steadying breath, Haeseon reached the rest of the way and pulled the infirmary door open.

Talya was no longer lying down across the mat of straw on the floor, but sitting upright as best she could. Her frame slumped forwards and the simple act of breathing seemed to cost her far more than it should’ve. She was heaving as if she’d run for miles and miles without pause, and even beneath the heavy furs draped over her shoulders, she was racked by tremors.

The light in the infirmary was dim; at first, Haeseon did not notice Qasim where stood some ways behind Talya, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. He was smiling once more, but the quirk of his lips was stiff as could be, as was his posture when he realised Jihan’s presence.

The vǫlva went to Talya’s side at once and steadied her with a hand on her shoulder. A shudder went through the northern captain, as if the seer’s touch was too cold for her feverish body, and she waved her away before beckoning Haeseon and motioned for him to sit in front of her. He went at once while Jihan remained by the door, silent.

“Talya,” he said in a whisper, pitched high with worry. He kneeled before her, his nervousness momentarily forgotten as he took in her haggard appearance. Where her skin was bare, it glistened with sweat, and a redness spread from her face all the way down to her chest. “Are you alright?”

It was a foolish question to ask after what had happened to her. Traces of the poison still lingered on her body, her skin scarred and discoloured by the corner of her lips. Even so, she smiled her usual smile and nodded. “I’m fine,” she said, as if she was unaware of the way she swayed slightly where she sat. “My body is weak, but I still have all my senses. At least I think I do.”

While she chuckled at her own attempt at humour, Haeseon remained silent. Now that he had seen her awake and well enough to speak, his guilt came barreling back and had him lowering his gaze to his own lap. He wrung his hands in an attempt to stop them from trembling all the while worrying his lip and waiting for his judgement to arrive.

Upon his nervousness, Talya’s smile softened, as did her voice. “Sweet Haeseon,” she said, “why won’t you look at me?”

Haeseon parted his lips and closed them again to press them together instead. As if a weight hung from his head, he looked up slowly and met Talya’s gaze, but even though there was no anger in her, he gast down his eyes again. 

His timid behaviour made the Northern Cardinal sigh, although not from impatience. “So it is true, then, what Qasim as told me,” she said. She sounded as if she was resigning herself to the conversation to come, as if she dreaded it every bit as much as Haeseon did. “You’ve taken my son as your prisoner.”

Her words were meant for Jihan, and it was he who answered. “Yes,” he said while Haeseon only nodded. “His behaviour over the past weeks has been suspicious. His attitude towards us, who came to the North to help you, has been spiteful and condescending, and every encounter we’ve had with Hel—your sister—has been led either by a convenient absence on your son’s behalf, or a direct encounter between him and her.”

The mention of Hel’s relation to Talya had her looking around in surprise, first at the vǫlva and then at Haeseon, before she heaved a weary sigh. Her frame slumped further still when she buried her face in her hands for a long moment, a sound akin to a low, drawn-out growl rising from her chest.

Jihan carried on without pause. “When I confronted him, his reply was to throw a tantrum and shout rather than explain himself,” he said and jerked his head towards the deck, “and to stand by while his crewman came at me with her arm in the shape of a knife. When the songbird went to the brig to hear his side of it all, Sabelsson replied with insults rather than any proper proof of his innocence.”

His words were blunt even in the face of Talya’s weakness. After he was done, she remained silent for a long moment, her face still buried in her hands as she dealt with whatever thoughts that rushed through her head. She said nothing, nor did anyone else in the room. Qasim shifted his posture, but while his discontent was clear, he held his tongue as well.

When the Northern Cardinal finally raised her head once more, it was Haeseon she looked at with apprehension and, much to his shock, guilt marring her face. “Forgive me,” she said and shook her head. Her brows pinched tightly together and she looked older than Haeseon had ever seen her then, as if Jihan’s words had aged her. “Can you forgive me, sweet Haeseon?”

In his bewilderment, he forgot his prior anxiousness. “Can I—what for?” he asked in confusion. He looked from Talya to the vǫlva for answers, and back again when he received none. “There is nothing you’ve done that I should forgive, Talya.”

“There is,” she insisted, shaking her head once more. “I never said anything, did I? I never stopped Freyr whenever he would…” Her words tapered off when a spasm of pain came over her, but she persisted through it, clutching hard at the edges of her furs for stability. “I saw it,” she said, “but I convinced myself it wasn’t so bad. I only—he is young. He’s young and proud, and I believed he only wanted to appear strong in the eyes of both the Eastern Cardinal and you, sweet Haeseon, whom I’d spoken of so often.”

While Haeseon had looked away in his shame, Talya did the opposite. She held his gaze even though it seemed to cost her no small amount of bravery to do so. “I realised his behaviour was wrong,” she said with a grimace, “but I couldn’t scold him for it. It wasn’t my right to do it.”

“What do you mean?” Haeseon asked, frowning. While he knew nothing of parenthood, Talya had said it herself, that she would take action should her son misbehave in regards to him and Jihan. Throw him into the sea, she had said in jest.

Another flare of pain went through the Cardinal’s body, but she waved away the vǫlva when she drew near to help her settle on the floor once again. She was too weak, however, nearly falling over with the effort it cost to raise her arm. Quickly, Haeseon moved closer to her so he could help her lie down; upon his touch, she went without complaint.

On her back, the haze cleared from her eyes and she looked up at Haeseon with a silent plea in her eyes. “I was never a good mother,” she said hoarsely. “I never… I wasn’t good for him when he was young. I was never good, so now, I try to be a friend to him.” Her lips quirked into a smile, one twisted and bitter and rueful. “I have no right to be his mother.”

In his shock, it was all Haeseon could do for a long moment to simply gape at her with no coherent words to make it past his lips. “I,” he began when he found his voice again, however meek it had become. “I’m sure that’s not true, Talya.”

“It is, sweet Haeseon,” she said and closed her eyes to find her courage. When she opened them again, she stared up into the ceiling, as if she could see her past written across the dark wood. “When he was born, I was not ready to come ashore. I had stayed at sea for eight months with him in my belly. I had risk my life over and over, and risked his life as well. It was Qasim who finally convinced me to go ashore and give birth safely, but I…”

She grimaced as if the words tasted foul on her tongue. In the corner, Qasim shifted in discomfort once more, his smile, however forced, having faded. “I was unhappy,” Talya said quietly. “The sea was everything to me, and even if I was only away from it for a matter of months, it was horrible.”

She spoke with self-loathing in her voice, a tone which all but frightened Haeseon. It was the first time he had seen her so solemn, the first time he had heard her speak such severe words. It was unfamiliar and made the distress in him rear its head, the tremors in his hands growing worse.

“I left Freyr as soon as he was old enough to be weaned,” Talya went on, no matter how hard it was to speak or how it hurt to hear it. “As soon as he didn’t need me for his survival any longer, I left him and went back to the sea. I gave him to the old women in Ísafjörður whom I had known ever since I myself was only a little girl, and I left him.”

“Talya,” Haeseon whispered, although he did not know what else to say. He couldn’t think of any proper words, neither comforting nor reassuring.

The Northern Cardinal’s smile was humourless. “I told you I wasn’t a good mother,” she said and shook her head as best she could where she lay. “I went back to see him only a few times every year. I went back for his birthday, but apart from that, I went only whenever I happened to be passing the town. If I happened to be passing it.”

She looked at Qasim, who immediately grew stiff with tension and looked away. “Qasim never insisted I stay,” she said. “He was frightened of fatherhood. He likes to pretend he holds all the knowledge in the world, but even though he asked for my hand in marriage as soon as he realised I was bearing his child, he was not ready to be a father. He always came with me when I went back to the sea.”

“I doubt this is something they have to know,” Qasim said. His voice was not angry nor harsh, but monotonous, as if he did his utmost to hide whatever emotions his words would truly bear.

Talya nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said through her struggle to breathe properly. “I’m sorry, I only want them to understand.”

Qasim nodded as well and attempted one of his sardonic smiles, but his jaw was set too tightly to allow it. His gaze flickered from Talya to Haeseon and then to Jihan before settling on the floor next to where his captain lay.

It took Talya a long moment to find her words again. When she finally did, her voice had become thick, her expression beginning to crumble. “I loved Freyr then every bit as much as I do now,” she whispered and looked at Haeseon as if she wanted to make sure he did not doubt her. “I swear I did. He is my son, of course I loved him, but I couldn’t—I was never frightened when he was in my belly. I never dreaded giving birth to him, but I couldn’t put my own selfishness aside to give him the proper care a mother should give her children.”

She did not cry, at least not for Haeseon to see. She turned her head and stared at the wall, as if she could see through it and onto the still ocean. “The sea called to me,” she said, wheezing, “and I was too weak to resist it. I went to it without thinking twice, and my son, my darling Freyr, had to suffer for it.”

All Haeseon could do was wait for her to resume her solemn tale. He still did not know what to say, or if Talya would even want to be comforted and reassured. For all he’d known, she was every bit as wonderful of a mother as she was a friend; more than once, he had caught himself thinking certain actions of hers were motherly. Again and again, she had encouraged him at the same time as she had been nurturing and guided his way, thus the harsh image she bore of herself made him ache to listen to.

Carefully, he reached out and placed his hand on top of hers. The touch made her flinch, either in surprise or as a result of her state of self-loathing, but whichever it was, she let him hold her and did not push him away.

“The old wives of Ísafjörður would tell me of him whenever I came back to visit,” she said once she’d regained some semblance of her composure. “They said he never cried. They said he was calm and serious, and while he asked about me at times, he never complained about my absence. Even when he was young, they said he understood me and bore me no ill will.”

She closed her eyes, sighing, and turned her hand to return Haeseon’s grip. “I’ve wondered at times if they lied,” she mumbled. “After all, no child could understand such a thing. Not even I could understand it. And I regret it now, gods, I regret it. He has become a great man and I couldn’t be prouder of him, but it’s not my hand that has shaped him into what he is.” Her eyes glistened with tears when she looked at Haeseon. “He grew strong without my help, because my help was never there for him to rely on.”

“He did have you, in a way,” Haeseon said. He knew his comfort was halfhearted at best, but seeing her so hurt over what she had no power to change now made him ache. “Even if you weren’t there, he had stories of you.”

“Stories are not enough, sweet Haeseon,” Talya said, although she smiled as she said it, a small curl of her lips meant only for him, as if she was showing him gratitude for his effort. “They could never replace the nurturing and comfort a child is supposed to receive from their mother.” She squeezed his hand with whatever strength she still had. “He never asked me why I had left him. I think he was afraid of the answer, so he said nothing. He never asked me why I came to see him so rarely. He only understood and forgave and reassured me, when I deserved none of it.”

“He loves you, Talya,” Haeseon said quietly. His words might’ve been hopeful rather than true; it was cruel to think Freyr looked at his mother with the same contempt she bore for herself. No matter how much Haeseon disliked the boy for his treason, he knew Freyr carried at least some semblance of affection for Talya. He had seen it at times over the past weeks, no matter how infrequently. He knew he had. “I know he does.”

Talya nodded, but her expression did not soften. “I know it, too,” she said, “and it makes it worse, in a way. If he was angry with me, I could try my best to make it right. I could learn his true feelings, even if he shouted them at me, and I could set things right.” She wet her lips, cracked beyond repair as they were. “I could as for his forgiveness,” she whispered, “and hope he would be honest in his reply.”

The vǫlva raised her voice then, speaking words foreign to Haeseon’s ears. By the door, Jihan turned away as if he did not want to hear, and Haeseon was reminded of the fact that he spoke the Northern Cardinal’s tongue. A look of reluctant wistfulness seeped into the frown he had etched into his brow, but he said nothing, his lips pressed firmly together to swallow whatever it was the seer’s words brought to his mind.

Talya shook her head again when the vǫlva was done. “He has only ever been understanding,” she said with a sense of stubbornness, “and in return, I have to be patient. I have to wait for him to come to me. Until he does, all I can do is be there for him as I should’ve been since the moment he was born.”

She looked at Haeseon and squeezed his hand, weak as her grip was. “I’m sorry, sweet Haeseon,” she said again. “My failures as a mother is the cause of Freyr’s behaviour towards you, I know it. He must feel—if I had only loved him right, none of this would’ve happened.”

“Don’t say that,” Haeseon whispered and clutched at her hand. “It’s not true.”

“It is.” Talya nodded in certainty of her own words, wholly ready and willing to bear the full responsibility for what had happened. “I can’t scold him for the way he has treated you, because I have no right to,” she said. “I’ve never been a proper mother to him. I have no right to be one now.”

She turned her head in attempt to look at Jihan, but gave up when the muscles in her neck gave in, rendered weak by the poison. “Your black fox has ever right to be angry with me for not stopping my son as soon as I noticed how he treated you,” she muttered. “I know I should’ve told him to forget his spite and treat you with kindness, but whenever I thought of doing it, I was reminded of all the times Freyr would’ve needed me to be his mother.”

With a groan, Talya turned onto her side and began to push herself upright on the straw mat. Her arms trembled with the effort, but she shook her head both when the vǫlva and Haeseon offered to help. Only when Qasim broke free from the wall and placed his hands on her arms did she allow herself to be guided until she was sitting upright once more.

Sweat clung to her temple and her breath left her in ragged exhales, but she looked at Jihan with as much strength as she could muster. “My son is no traitor,” she told him. As they always were, her words were so certain of their truth even in her weakened state. “I say this not as a mother, but as someone who knows the man he is today. He has given you no reason to, but I trust him with my life. He wouldn’t—” She faltered for a moment, a flash of sadness crossing her face before her determination returned. “He would never betray the North.”

Jihan hesitated, his fingers drumming rapidly against his arm where it was crossed over his chest. He only looked at Talya, as if he would be able to see the truth on her skin should he look long enough. When he finally did speak, Haeseon could hear the doubt in his voice, even though he did his best to mask it as a gesture of sympathy.

“I don’t know what to make of all of this,” he said slowly. “I understand you trust him, but your faith does not erase my suspicions. It would be easier for all of us if it was so simple, but the safety of my crew comes before everything else to me.”

Perhaps it was odd, but Jihan’s conflict gave Haeseon peace, however little of it. The captain was attempting to be understanding even in spite of his own view and the immense pressure it had placed him under.

“My word is not law,” Jihan went on. “Simply because I named him a traitor doesn’t make it so. I know it, but I haven’t changed my mind. Regardless of your trust in him, he still has not given me any reason at all to trust him. Just as parents can grow to resent their child for betraying them, a child can grow to resent their parent for what they think of as betrayal.”

He spoke the words through gritted teeth, and Haeseon knew he was thinking of his own mother and father then. There was a similarity to Talya’s tale and his own; while she believed she had failed as a mother, Jihan believed he had failed as a child. From his words, Haeseon knew the captain had realised it as well.

He wished he could’ve drawn his beloved into his arms and comforted him.

“I know,” Talya said solemnly. “I have failed you as well, so I can’t ask you to trust me to deal with him either. I can’t…” Qasim squeezed her arms when her voice faded and leaned close to murmur strange words against her temple. Words of comfort, surely, by the way she seemed to draw strength from them. “I don’t yet know how,” she said, “but I will make him prove his innocence to you. He is no traitor, and I will make him prove it.”

Jihan hardly looked convinced, his brow still knitted into a tight frown, but before he could speak, either to accept the Northern Cardinal’s efforts or deny them, the door next to him swung open with so much force it nearly came right off its hinges. The captain startled, a harsh curse spilling form his lips as he rounded on whomever had come barging into the infirmary.

“You’d better have a damn good reason for—”

“He’s gone.” Daewon’s face was more grim than it had ever been, as was his voice when he repeated the words Haeseon so dreaded to hear. “He’s gone,” he said stiffly. “Sabelsson has escaped.”

As one, the lot of them turned to look at Talya, whose hopeful look crumbled like dust. Her strength left her all at once and she sagged back against Qasim’s arms, and whispered words that, even to Haeseon’s ears, sounded like a prayer.

He could not understand what it was she asked for, but it did not matter. As Jihan rushed out of the infirmary, all Haeseon wanted for her plea to be heard, if only so they could all know peace once more.

-

can freyr just sit the hECK DOWN FOR A SECOND OH MY GOD HE'S MAKING IT ALL SO MUCH WORSE FOR EVERYONE

E V E R Y O N E

UGH

but also

:(

this was suuuper heavy for me to write. motherhood is a really difficult thing, as is the rearing of children, and while talya is so, so lovely and kind and strong, this was something she couldn’t do right. she was young when she had freyr, and with the blood of the valkyrja in her, she had no idea how to deal with raising a child and being a proper mother for him. she couldn’t do it, so even though it wasn’t her intention, she ran away.

but what i love is that she's not self-pitying about the mistakes she's made, like, i know a lot of people who, when they realise they've done something wrong, kinda spin it around into feeling sorry for themselves for messing up. talya is strong and even though she makes mistakes, she can recognise them and is fully prepared to take responsibility for them, and god i love her for it

(lowkey feels weird to say all that about a character i myself created bUTJSHDHJS)

also heck me up but i'd love to write a whole spin-off of talya and qasim's relationship *u* everything from how they met to how they fell in love, to how they show their affection etc etc because neither of them are very "openly romantic" with one another, right, at least not compared to jihan and haeseon. if i remember right, they've kissed once in the series so far, and i just, it'd be so interesting to go into depth on how their love actually works~~

add that to the list of things i wanna do with this universe, right next to all the jihae fanfictions i'm already planning on writing uH—

yeah

right.

NOTICE! next week is finals' week for me so there will be no chapter! i'm sorry for the inconvenience, but i gotta secure my scholarship and bury my ass in a mountain of books ._______. sorry this has to happen every midterm and final season, and thank you for always being so understanding! 

i repeat, NO CHAPTER NEXT WEEK!!


	35. ch. 34 - Gone

I AM BACK AFTER FINALS AND WHO CARES IF I TANKED ONE OF THEM BOI AM I HAPPY TO BE WRITING AGAIN UGH I MISSED MY BABIES ;____;

even though it's all stress and confusion and dread for the lot of them uH

seriously the protcc jihan hashtag needs to trend worldwide right about now the boy just needs to sLEEP :(((

ALSO some of you were worried when i didn't post anything last week even though i had mentioned it in my end notes, so just a reminder to always read my author's notes, especially the end ones, since there might be some info about updates and stuff amidst all my incoherent yelling :D:D::D

HOKAY ON WITH THE (shit)SHOW

-

“He was right here, I swear it on my life, cap’n.”

Jihan pressed a hand over his eyes and drew a lungful of air in attempt to calm himself in his state of growing trepidation. As soon as the door to the brig was opened, the lot of them could see it was empty save for the crates and boxes that had always been there, as if the cell’s occupant has never been there at all. The iron bars of it were untouched and the door steady as ever, yet Freyr was nowhere to be seen.

“I watched ‘em all the time,” Chodan said, his voice pitched high with nervousness. “The only time I turned ‘round was when Daewon came knockin’ on the door to take my shift. I opened the door, ‘n when I looked back, he—”

“He what, he was gone?” Jihan bit off. “He had disappeared? Vanished into thin air, as if by some spell of magic?”

His voice was ripe with irony, yet for all the warning it bore to leave the rhetorical questions unanswered, Chodan nodded, although he did so with his eyes trained firmly on the floor. “Yes,” he said in a mutter.

Jihan gave him a long look, one that had him squirming where he stood, before moving into the brig to get a proper look of the cells. While Daewon followed after him, Haeseon lingered by the doorway, far from eager to set foot within the brig. Even with the obvious absence of Freyr, the boy’s presence still lingered, as if his shadow had remained to taunt the lot of them.

It reminded him of the last time he had been down here, and the anger with which the boy had spoken to him. He did not want to imagine what Freyr would do now that he was free; he had asked Lucya and Xiao to watch over the infirmary while they were below deck should the boy make an attempt to do just about anything to the one he had betrayed.

“He’s nowhere to be found aboard the ship,” Daewon said, frowning. “I had the deckhands scour the August from bow to stern, and they found nothing out of the ordinary.”

“People do not simply disappear without a trace,” Jihan said in exasperation. “He has to have used some trick, or someone must’ve helped him to…” His words tapered off into silence at whatever thoughts came to him, and the look on his face grew more and more grim for every moment of his silence that passed. “What was it Sabelsdottír told us when her son first sailed here?” he asked. “That every pirate sailing aboard his ship bears a Blessing, one he can take command of by a mere touch?”

The mere reminder of it had Haeseon shuddering with distress, the canary in him growing anxious. “Yes,” Daewon said and nodded. “One of them must’ve given Sabelsson their Blessing to help him escape. But,” he looked around in the brig, the frown on his brow deepening further still, “how? Even if he had taken their Blessing and used it to disappear, the original bearer should still remain.”

“That depends on the Blessing,” Jihan said. He spoke through gritted teeth, his already aggravated mood turning fouler still upon the possibility. “His crew must be involved. They are the only ones who would’ve wanted to set him free.” When he rubbed at his face, Haeseon knew it was to mask the exhaustion that gnawed at him rather than a tick of his ire. He was tired, ungodly so, yet when he lowered his hand and made for the door, he showed none of it. “We will know the truth from them.”

Haeseon stood aside to let him pass before following hot on his heels. “Will they tell us?” he asked hesitantly. “I doubt they’re willing to admit they freed him.”

“It’s not about what they are or aren’t willing to do,” Jihan said without slowing his pace. He looked as if he was rearing up to board Freyr’s ship as he was, fuming and alone against three dozen. “They’ve freed a prisoner of ours, and they will answer for it.”

His words and the anger with which they were spoken did little to stave Haeseon’s nervousness; on the contrary, it only made it worse, bringing with it a dread of the conflict surely to follow. He did not have time to voice his concerns, however, before Jihan climbed through the companionway and onto deck to bark orders at those who stood closest.

“Bahir Qasim!” he shouted, wholly unintimidated by the northerners aboard his own ship. He stormed towards the infirmary and was just about to all but shove Xiao out of the way when the door swung open and Qasim appeared in the doorway.

“You’re quite loud,” he said, and even though his tone was light, his eyes were narrowed, if only so subtly it might have been a factor of the sun’s light. “I assume you couldn’t find—”

“I’m about to board your son’s ship and ask them to tell me who set him free,” Jihan said, his rumbling voice easily drowning out the helmsman’s, “but before I do, I want you to tell me you did not use your illusions to mask his escape.”

Qasim only looked at him for a moment, brows raised first in surprise and then bewilderment, before he schooled his expression back into his usual sardonic one. The smile on his lips quivered slightly, however, but Haeseon could not tell its cause. “I haven’t left this room for hours, Choi Jihan,” he said dryly. “How could I have helped him from here? And why would I have done it? As you yourself saw, I stood aside when you decided to throw that boy in the brig. What would cause me such a sudden change of heart?”

His counter questions had Jihan’s eyes narrowing, the tension in his frame growing firmer still. “You’re not answering my question,” he said through gritted teeth.

“You’ve yet to ask me any questions,” Qasim retorted, his smile as stiff as stone. “My words are answer enough. I’ve given you the logical truth. Whatever is to be done with it is up to you.”

For a moment, Haeseon worried the captain would lunge at Qasim. A quiver went through his prosthetic arm as if it was costing him no small amount of effort to keep from throttling the northerner, and his jaw clenched so tightly the bones might’ve cracked. At last, however, Jihan turned away, although he looked so murderous both Xiao and Lucya drew back from him. “Tell them to bring Sabelsson’s ship side by side with ours,” he barked at Qasim.

The helmsman emitted a humourless titter. “You’re no captain of mine, Choi—”

Jihan rounded on him before he could speak his ironic jest and grabbed him by the collar with no small amount of force. “I’m not your captain,” he spat, uncaring of the way in which the northern pirates grew stiff with anger all at once, “but I swear I will send that ship to the bottom of the sea if you do not do as told. Your son is my enemy and his crew has helped him flee, and I will have the truth from them even if I’ll have to tear it from their bones.”

The smile, forced or not, fell from Qasim’s lips at once, the whole of his facade dropping upon the threat. For once, he did not immediately reply with a snarky retort or wit, and Haeseon knew the severity of Jihan’s words had pushed through his courage. He could see it in the way the helmsman’s arms tensed and twitched as if ready to engage in combat, as well as in the way his breath quickened ever so slightly.

Even Qasim knew to be wary of Jihan when the threat he spoke was so severe, no matter how reluctantly he submitted.

He spoke his command to Talya’s men, who in turn went to the rail to shout the order back to those who sailed Freyr’s ship. They did so begrudgingly, and Jihan only let go of Qasim once the message had been passed on. The helmsman did not back away immediately, likely to show he was not so afraid he felt the need to put distance between them, but his heel scraped against the deck all the same, and his hand twitched towards the doorframe.

When all this is over, Haeseon thought wistfully, will we still be able to call ourselves friends?

Jihan shoved his way past the northerners that had gathered by the rail, wholly unafraid of the manner in which they scowled and muttered and glared at him. They looked just about ready to draw whatever weapons they had sheathed at their waist, be it sword or axe, yet the captain spared them not a single glance. Aboard his own ship, he did not fear what any of them might do; whatever they would try, he could make the August swallow them whole should he so will it.

As soon as Freyr’s ship began drawing up along the August’s starboard side, Haeseon could sense the outright hostility coming from the whole of the crew. Just as Talya’s northerners, every last one of them looked ready to draw their weapons: Ahrim stood by the rail with her hands clasped tightly behind her back, as if it was all she could do to restrain her Blessing just then.

Boarding Freyr’s ship was the last thing Haeseon wished to do. Not only had he been wary of the lot of them since the first time Talya had spoken of their nature, but now, when they showed such open rancour, it would be the same as walking into the den of a beast.

He would not let Jihan go alone, however, thus when the captain stepped over the rail, Haeseon followed him aboard what he was like to call a hostile vessel.

“I know the lot of you know it already,” Jihan began, rage seeping off of every syllable he spoke, “but your captain has escaped his imprisonment. He disappeared from his cell with no signs of force, so one of you must’ve given him your Blessing to set him free.”

Although next to none of them truly understood the captain’s words, their reaction was all the same, a steady thrum of resistance. None of them said a word or even moved, none except for Ahrim, who looked as if she’d like nothing more than to see her previous effort at Jihan’s life through. “You have no proof,” she said coldly, “and even if you did, you are in no position to pass judgement here. This is not the East, Choi Jihan.”

“I don’t need the title of Cardinal to pass judgement for this, girl,” Jihan retorted with equal chill. “He was freed from my ship, so you can be damn sure I will issue whatever punishment I see fit for the one who helped him escape.”

Ahrim bristled at that, the skin of her neck turning shiny with steel. “You imprisoned our captain, and now you come speaking threats?” she hissed. “Your reputation must’ve risen to your head if you think you can act this way in front of twenty bearers of Blessings.”

In his desperation to end the argument before it could escalate any further, Haeseon looked around in search of anything to distract the two. All he saw were faces full of anger and contempt, every bit as cold as the North, until he caught sight of a man standing some ways to their right, clutching at the rail for support. As soon as he noticed Haeseon’s gaze, he drew back into the crowd, but he stumbled as he did, disoriented as he was.

“Jihan,” Haeseon said quietly and placed a hand on the captain’s arm. He could feel Ahrim’s gaze bore into the side of his head, but he raised his hand to point all the same. “Over there, look.”

Without waiting for an explanation, Jihan stepped in the given direction, pushing his way through the protesting crew. Several of them looked ready to attempt to stop him by force, but Qasim called for the lot of them to stand down from where he stood at the August’s rail. He looked exasperated now, as if he wanted nothing more than for the whole affair to be done with.

Haeseon stayed close to Jihan’s back the whole way, Ahrim’s protests ringing in his ears to make him hesitate, but when the last of the pirates parted to reveal the one he had seen, he knew he had been right.

The man looked as if he could barely stand upright, his frame hunched and weak. He swayed slightly where he stood, and his skin was sickly pale and racked with tremors. Upon first glance, the pirate might only have been ill, but his state was familiar, so much so that it made the canary in Haeseon’s chest fidget in distress.

Jihan recognised it as well, if the curse he muttered beneath his breath was any sign of it. “I knew it,” he said and turned on Ahrim. “What Blessing did he bear?”

It was a futile thing to ask; Haeseon knew it as well as the captain did. The girl crossed her arms tightly over her chest and stuck out her jaw, ready to play the part of a stone wall, unyielding in her defiance. “He’s merely sick with the cold,” she said in a tone so unconvincing, it was as if she wanted him to know she was lying.

Jihan scoffed, the sound akin to a growl. “That is no cold,” he said and pointed at the frail man. “You looked the same after Sabelsson took your Blessing from you, so I ask you again.” He towered over Ahrim when he stepped up in front of her, if not by hight, then by the sheer pressure he exuded in his anger and impatience. “What Blessing did he bear?”

The girl pressed her lips together even as she, just like Qasim, looked as if she was ready to fight for the sake of her safety. “Even if he had given his Blessing away, there is nothing you can do now,” she said, the faintest quiver to her voice. “We’re at open sea with Hel and all her men on our arses. We can’t go ashore, so unless you plan to sink this ship right here and now, there is nothing you can do to us.”

There was a bait to her words, a taunt for Jihan to ruin whatever chances of peace the three crews still had. For a moment, Haeseon feared the captain might’ve taken it, but all he did was shove past Ahrim and make his way towards the ship’s quarterdeck. The girl stared after him with a look of triumph, one that faded when Jihan steered his steps towards the twin masts standing amidst the deck rather than returning to the August.

“Wait,” she said loudly and made to follow. “What are you doing?”

Jihan said nothing, shaking back the sleeves of his robes so he could press the palm of his right hand against one of the masts. At once, a terrible creaking noise rose from the wood as it was forced to bend out of shape, its ropes and stays snapping off the rails.

“You stop that!” Ahrim shouted, pushing past the men of her own crew to reach the captain. A flash of steel crossed the skin of her hand as she raised it towards Jihan’s back, the sight of which sent a thrill of cold through Haeseon’s body. “I told you to—”

Before she could step within reach of the captain, Haeseon lashed out and grabbed hold of her sleeve, sparing none of his strength as he pulled her back. “Don’t touch him, Ahrim,” he said, his voice leaving him a hiss. The girl had attempted to hurt Jihan before, and at the time, Haeseon had been too shocked to react, but now, he would not let her near him. “I will hurt you if you do.”

Ahrim looked ready to take his challenge, but the ship lurched beneath them before she could so much as reply. The deck roiled with the effort of Jihan’s Blessing’s touch; the two masts bent and curled around one another until they were tied into a knot that rendered their sails completely useless.

Sweat clung to the captain’s temples when he turned back around. “I’ll take no chances,” he said harshly. “This vessel will move only by the ropes we use to tow it, and if your captain wants to have his ship—and his crew—back, he’d best come ask for it himself.” He made for the rail, but stopped in front of Ahrim. “You may not respect me as a captain here in the North, but you can be certain I hold no value for your lives as compared to that of my crew, either,” he told her with not a shred of empathy to his voice. “If you step out of line again or show even the slightest sign of resistance, I will cut the ropes and leave you to try your luck against Hel on your own.”

With that, he turned away and made for the August, with Haeseon following quickly behind. The rage seeping from Freyr’s crew was all but palpable, but Haeseon’s ears still rang with the cold Ahrim’s behaviour had caused, thus he felt none of it.

“I will take the helm,” Jihan said as soon as they were safe back aboard their own ship. “I don’t trust them to heed anything I told them, so I want them in my sight at all times.”

With a quick look at Haeseon, one that was apologetic and all but miserable, he made for the quarterdeck to take over for Jun at the wheel. Haeseon did not linger for long; with his senses slowly returning, he became aware of the hostility exuding from Talya’s men, which he could not escape as easily as he could Freyr’s.

He made for the companionway with the intent to seek out Seunggi and Yeonshin. He paused on the way, however, to watch Qasim retreat back into the infirmary with a look of rigidness plaguing his features. Again, Haeseon wondered if the bond between the crews was at all salvageable anymore; it seemed even less plausible than it had mere minutes prior.

The following hours were the slowest by far, full of tension and constant unrest. No one from any of the three crews seemed to have a single thought of settling down; it was as if all of them were expecting one of the others to strike at them in violence. Talya’s crew were gathered by the fore, angry and glaring, while those who crewed the August kept their distance from them. Every last one of them had taken to bearing arms now, a habit none of them typically practiced aboard the safety of their own vessel.

Haeseon could hardly fault them for it. The August felt far from safe as it were. Hel still chased after them, but she seemed all but an afterthought in the face of the tension aboard the August, so heavy Haeseon thought he might crack under it.

He hadn’t seen Talya since Freyr’s escape, having not had the courage to go see her. He knew Qasim had told her what had happened, and perhaps it would’ve been good of Haeseon to visit her and talk to her about what was going on, but something kept him from it. Perhaps it was the way Qasim had reacted to his son’s escape, or the dread of upsetting the northern pirates further still; whichever it was, Haeseon had stayed away from the infirmary, first spending time below deck with Yeonshin and then with Jihan and Seunggi up by the helm.

None of them had said much. While the captain was far too tense to partake in any casual talk, Seunggi was on edge as well, an air of upset and anger clinging to him as he glared at the northerners from over the rail. He continuously muttered to himself under his breath even as he sat curled up beneath a blanket lined with furs with Haeseon, undoubtedly cursing the pirates who were so hostile towards his brother.

Night had had time to fall by the time the quartermaster finally raised his voice enough for Haeseon to properly hear his words. “What’s wrong with them?” Seunggi asked in a whisper, as if the northerners would understand him should he speak too loudly. “They used to stare this way every chance they had, or mutter complaints under their breath without care for who would hear, but now they’re so…” He waved his hand in a tentative motion. “Lifeless.”

Haeseon was about to tell him not to worry, but when he looked at the northern pirates, truly looked at them, he realised the quartermaster was right. The men of Talya’s crew seemed to be barely moving at all outside of breathing, the lot of them standing or sitting in a cluster by the rail halfway to the figurehead. They did not look at those of the August’s crew who walked past nor did they speak amongst one another.

A shudder went through Haeseon and he rose to his feet to reach out for his beloved without taking his eyes off the northmen. “Jihan,” he said slowly, even though he did not know what to say upon the captain’s attention.

In the end, he did not need to say a word. Before his eyes, the northern pirates vanished one by one, disappearing into thin air as if they were naught but ghosts. Startled exclaims rose from the August’s crew, the previously still deck quickly becoming frantic with life.

“Fuck,” Jihan hissed and left the helm to rush down the stairs and towards the stern. “Fuck!”

Freyr’s ship was gone from the waters behind them, as was Hel’s vessel on the horizon. Not a trace of them still remained, their departure hidden by the lingering effects of Qasim’s illusions. “What is—” Haeseon began in his shock, but the rest of his words were drowned by the chill that went through him, an ominous premonition. “Talya…”

He turned and made for the infirmary while the others flocked to the rail in search of the two vessels. Without caring to knock, he threw the door open, only to find his fears had been true.

The vǫlva sat alone in the middle of the room, picking and stowing the herbs and potions she had used to treat the Northern Cardinal. Talya herself was nowhere to be seen; the mat where she had been resting lay empty, only a few drops of dried blood remaining of her presence. Qasim was gone as well, and Haeseon realised now why the helmsman had looked so tense when retreating to the infirmary.

Upon Haeseon’s entry, the seer ceased what she was doing and raised her head halfway, yet not high enough to show him her face. “Where is she?” he asked of her, his voice coming out shrill in his panic. “Where is Talya?”

Sighing, the seer drew a letter from the confinements of her robes and held it out to him. “You could not have stopped her,” she said solemnly, “but she knew you would try.”

Without bothering to ask for an explanation, Haeseon took the letter from her and opened it so fast he nearly tore it in half.

Sweet Haeseon,

I’m sorry to leave in such a cowardly manner, but I fear this is the only way. I’ve taken my crew and Freyr’s and made for the shore, where we will confront my sister and finally put an end to all of this. I know Choi Jihan would not allow it, so I asked Qasim to hide our departure with his illusions. By the time they fade, we will likely be hours gone.

What your fox said to me is true; you and your crew have suffered far more than I could’ve predicted, and it is not fair for you when this battle is not your own. I asked for too much, I know it, and I am sorry.

We will see through the rest on our own, and meet you again in the East when it is done.

Oh, and you may tell your fox that it was useless to tie the masts of Freyr’s ship into a knot. One of his pirates bears the Blessing of Shapes, and he could restore them easily enough. I thought it might irritate your fox to not know how it was done, so… well. I suppose it doesn’t really matter now.

Thank you, sweet Haeseon, for everything.

Your friend, always,

Talya

“She’s too weak,” Haeseon said as soon as he had read the letter to its end. “She can’t go into battle now.”

“The blood of the Valkyrja does not care,” the vǫlva said without looking up from what she was doing. Her expression was calm as ever, although there was a hint of unstability to her voice. Surely, even she must’ve realised the risks her captain was taking, no matter if it was caused by the godlike blood in her veins. “This battle has called for her for long enough. She could not stay any longer.”

Haeseon parted his lips in protest, but closed them again when the words would not come to him. His heart beat fast with dread of what might happen to her friend, who had barely been able to sit upright last he’d seen her. He could not let her go alone, no matter how many of her own crew or Freyr’s men she had by her side. It would torment him to not know she was safe, or whether or not she was still alive.

He turned away with the intent to look for Jihan, only to find the captain standing in the doorway. “Jihan,” he cried and hurried over to him, pressing the letter against his chest, “Talya, she left, she—”

“I heard,” Jihan said tersely. Truly, he looked as if he was ready to give in and simply sail back East. He stared down at the letter in Haeseon’s hand, perhaps intentionally avoiding his gaze to buy himself time to muster his resolve in the face of what he knew Haeseon would ask him.

“We can’t let her go alone, Jihan,” Haeseon said, pleading. “She’s not strong enough to fight Saga, or anyone. You saw how she was, she—” He drew a quivering breath in attempt to calm himself, but it did little to soothe the urgency in him. “She will lead the charge into battle, but she can’t win.”

Jihan finally met his gaze then, and Haeseon knew he was asking the world of his beloved. What Talya had written in her letter was true, after all; they had lost Hisashi already and several more had been injured, crippled. Their agreement to help the Northern Cardinal had cost them more than they could afford to lose, yet Haeseon could not turn away now, when his friend needed him most.

“Please, Jihan,” he said, even though he knew it was not fair of him to ask. “We have to help her.”

The captain looked as if he was in pain, an expression he could not hide even when he reached up to press the palm of his hand against Haeseon’s cheek. “If I didn’t owe her a favour for the part she played in our battle against the Rabid Conflagration,” he said lowly, “I would sail back East without looking back. I know she is your friend, songbird, but just as Sabelsson’s crew is worth nothing compared to the people aboard this ship, Sabelsdottír is not so precious to me that I would willingly sacrifice those who matter most to save her.” He stroked the skin beneath Haeseon’s eyes before withdrawing his hand. “If I lose any more of you, I will never forgive her.”

His words made Haeseon ache, yet all he could do was nod. Sighing, Jihan turned away and returned to deck, his touch lingering on Haeseon’s skin. “Turn us around, Seunggi, and make for the shore!” he called before instructing the rest of his crew to prepare themselves for combat.

There was no relief to be found even though Jihan had done as Haeseon had asked. On the contrary, he was far more tense now than he had been, even though he knew he had chosen the right thing to do. He lingered in the infirmary, seeking courage from its walls, its darkness, anything at all.

It was the vǫlva who eventually broke him out of his thoughts, ones that had grown darker and darker for every moment of silence. “You may regret what will happen now, Yun Haeseon,” she said. When he turned to look at her, she met his eyes as if she could see him through her blindness, “but your fate is bound with hers. No matter what, both you and the daughter of Hildr are needed for the sake of ending this battle of gods and men.”

Had Haeseon been in a clearer state of mind, he might’ve asked the seer what she meant, but as he was, all he could think of was Talya and her safety, and hope and prey they would not reach her too late. We’re coming, Talya, he thought and wished with all his being that his friend could hear him. We’re coming, so wait for us, please, wait for us.

-

WE IN THE END GAME NOW HOO BOI SHIT'S ABOUT TO HIT THE FAN ON SO MANY LEVELS AHHHHHHH—

but like heck you ahrim and heck you everyone who looks at jihan wrong he's trying his best and y'all are making it difficult >:T

ALSO CAN I JUST SAY HAESEON PROTECTING JIHAN IS STILL THE BEST THING THAT HAS EVER COME OUT OF MY TINY BRAIN okay i love it when sweet haesae gets protective over his beloved captain UWU

also also, jihan's words about talya and freyr's crew might seem harsh, but like... as the captain of the august, his main focus is the safety of his crew, right, and not only does he absolutely despise freyr and everything that has to do with him, he was never "friends" with talya to begin with, more like acquaintances or allies, and with everything that's happened since they came north..... well, yeah, if he didn't owe talya a favour (which tbh even i as the author think has been repaid like twice already lmao) he would abandon her and go back east even despite haeseon's requests to help her :v

basically jihan's tolerance meter reached its capacity like fifteen chapters ago and he's so ready to just be dONE with everything and move on .__.

and have a wedding and finally get laid

ahhhh, one can always dream~~~

MKAY i'm gonna be moving this weekend and then i'm auditioning for a talent showdjhdJHDS BUT NEXT WEEK'S CHAPTER WILL STILL BE THE MOST EXCITING THING JUST SO Y'ALL ARE READY OKAY CHEERS~~~!


	36. ch. 35 - An Invisible Battle

sO this week has already been hype as all heck thanks to the singing contest and everything bUT THAT DOESN'T EVEN COMPARE TO HOW HYPE THIS CHAPTER IS OKAY I WAS LEGIT AT THE EDGE OF MY SEAT FOR THE WHOLE THING THAT'S HOW HYPE IT IS

though i'm kinda failing with the music here, for some reason i just had "dream glow" from the new bts game on repeat throughout writing this whole thing, which is sO NOT THE RIGHT TONEJSHDJSDHJS

ANYWAYS

ON WITH THE SHOW

-

“Why did you not go with you captain?”

Haeseon took his eyes off the shores of Iceland, which he had been staring at from up in the crow’s nest for the past few hours, and looked down to the deck instead. Jihan stood by the helm with Daewon and Seunggi, as well as the vǫlva of Talya’s crew. The question had been meant for the seer, who did not recoil at the harshness with which Jihan had spoken it.

“My purpose has never been to assist the Valkyrja’s blood in battle,” she said. “I do what my gods ask of me, and they have asked me to remain here.”

“Why?” The captain’s ire at the lack of a proper answer was clear as day, reaching even as far up as the crow’s nest. “Why would your gods want you to remain amongst strangers?” he asked. His grip was tight on the helm; by his side, Seunggi glanced nervously at the seer, as if he worried for how his brother would react to the vǫlva’s words. “We’re sailing to battle as well. What difference does it make what ship carries you there?”

She turned to him, the beads in her hair clattering against the elk-bone mask. “It matters more than anything, Choi Jihan,” she said with unnerving calm. “You face the same battle Talya does, but I am naught but a guide, and aboard this ship is one who needs my guidance more than my captain does now.”

Haeseon was quick to lean back, the whole of him becoming tense all at once. He knew the lot of them had turned their eyes towards the crow’s nest, but he did not want them to see him. The vǫlva expected something of him, she had told him as much, but he did not know what, and he would not be able to explain it should he try.

All he wanted was to help her friend before it was too late.

Two hours had passed since Qasim’s illusions had faded and Haeseon had found Talya’s letter of farewell in the infirmary. Albeit with no small amount of protests, Jihan had turned the August around to sail back the way they’d come. He had ordered his men to prepare for battle while Haeseon had taken to the crow’s nest to search for any sign of familiar sails, whether that be of a friend or foe. They sailed closer to the shores now; if Talya had gone after Freyr, they were like to have landed their ship to search for him ashore.

“Look here.” Jihan’s voice was taut with a calm he was not like to keep for much longer. “I don’t know what role you’re attempting to force onto the songbird,” he said coldly, “but he won’t be a pawn in whatever game it is you’re playing. Whatever you claim your gods have told you about him, I won’t stand by and watch you manipulate him.” He let go of the helm in favour of approaching the seer, and Seunggi hobbled over to take over steering while the captain voiced his mounting ire. “I don’t care who you are,” he hissed. “I will kill you before I let you send him into this battle to die.”

The vǫlva remained wholly unperturbed by his threat to her life. “I do not intend for Haeseon to go into this battle, Choi Jihan,” she told him. “His role is not to die, but to stray away from the fighting and bring about its end.”

Up in the crow’s nest, Haeseon rested his head against the top of the mast and closed his eyes. He felt more exhausted now than mere moments earlier; he loved Jihan, and it made him ache to know the brinks past which his beloved was being pushed because of him. Jihan needed to rest, gods, they all did. He could hear it in Daewon’s voice when he silently asked the captain to be calm, as well as in Seunggi’s words when he hushed the lot of them for the sake of sparing Haeseon whatever it was they would say of him.

His heart beast fast in his ears, an urgent rhythm that echoed from the very depths of the lands within their reach. It was inside him and outside as well, and it was every bit as frantic as he.

Whatever Jihan said to the vǫlva was spoken too quietly for Haeseon to hear, and he was content that way; naïve as it was of him, he would rather go without knowing every new rift that was dug between his and Talya’s crew.

The silence that followed their argument did not last for long. Haeseon had barely had time to clam his nerves again before he spotted not one, not two, but a dozen of masts rising past a hill someways down the shore. He could not see their ships, but one of the flags stood out with dreadful familiarity, a white skull smattered with specks of black.

Freyr’s ship.

“They’ve pulled ashore,” he told Jihan as soon as he had descended to the deck. “But there are so many of them. Ten ships at least.”

“They could be northern ships,” the captain said, “or western.” He ran a hand through his hair and pulled, harshly, before turning to address his crew. “Prepare to go ashore, and for battle against whatever pieces of shit still remain to fight!”

He turned to Haeseon and places his hands atop the feathers along his arms. “I would ask you to stay on the ship,” he said in a voice that was all but pleading to match the look on his face, “if only because you have no weapon to bear. I know you won’t, so please, please, songbird,” the words left him harshly, “stay out of reach of whomever we’re about to face.”

The ache in Haeseon’s chest grew stronger still. He wanted to do as told, he wanted to promise his beloved he would not take part in the battle to come, but it would be a lie to swear it. They both knew it would be. “I’ll be careful,” he said instead, even though it hurt to see the look on Jihan’s face crumble. “I promise to be every bit as careful as you are, Jihan.”

The captain laughed bitterly. “The two of us might end up buried beneath the snow,” he said in a hollow attempt at a jest.

“No,” Haeseon said firmly and drew back his Blessing’s feathers so he could place his hands against Jihan’s cold cheeks. “I won’t die until you’ve wed me properly, my betrothed, and not for a long while after. I’ll be careful now, but you must be as well.”

A flicker of hope crossed the captain’s face, and the rueful smile on his lips grew a bit gentler. “That’s right,” he muttered, as if it was a thing he had forgotten. “You promised you’d marry me.”

“I did,” Haeseon said and smiled, although it did not feel as warm as it wanted him to, not with the chill of dread in him. “And I will. I’ll fight in this battle like everyone else, and then I’ll marry you.”

Jihan heaved a sigh and turned his face to press his lips against the palm of Haeseon’s hand. “Bloody impossible,” he said before turning away and donning the face of captain once more. “Prepare to drop anchor!”

The whole of the August’s crew were readying themselves to go ashore. Chodan with his woldo sword, the master gunner armed with pistol and mace, the deckhands, Daewon, and even Jun. The cook looked green in the face at the prospect of accompanying the rest to battle, but he shook his head when Daewon asked him if he’d rather stay aboard the ship.

Even Lucya was ready to join the frey, in the most impressive manner of them all. She sat atop Xiao in his Blessing’s form like some goddess from tales of old, a lady of war riding a great bear into battle.

However, when Seunggi said he would fight as well, Jihan would hear none of it. “You can’t walk properly, Gi,” he said with no small amount of worry hidden beneath the stern tone of his voice. “I can’t let you come with us. Besides,” he added before his brother could protest, “Yeonshin needs you here. He can’t be alone, you know this.”

The quartermaster looked miserable where he clutched onto Haeseon’s shoulder to remain standing upright. “I can’t stay,” he protested. “It will kill me to not know if you’re alright!”

“It would kill you if you came with us,” Jihan said, his expression every bit as desperate when Seunggi winced at his harsh words. “Gi, you have to understand—”

“I understand,” the quartermaster bit off. “I hear you, captain. I would weigh the lot of you down.” There were tears pooling in his good eye, ones of frustration. “I understand just fine.”

Jihan parted his lips and closed them again, choosing to be silent rather than voice words he would regret in his agitation. “We’ll come back to you,” he promised instead and pulled his brother into an embrace Seunggi, in his stubbornness, did not return. “Keep Yeonshin safe for me.”

The quartermaster said nothing, but he nodded against Jihan’s shoulder, however stiff of an agreement it was.

“I’m sorry,” Haeseon whispered to him when Jihan had gone to oversee their landing. “I’m sorry you can’t come.”

Seunggi sighed and rubbed angrily at the tears on his cheeks. “I know,” he said and shook his head. “I only—I feel so useless, Haesae. I haven’t been able to do anything ever since our first encounter with Hel. Saga. Hel, whatever her name is now.” He scoffed and none too gently smacked his healing leg. “All I can do is sit around and wait.”

“That’s not true,” Haeseon said at once. “If you hadn’t sailed the August to the shores to trap Elyas Lowe after he captured us, he might’ve escaped. Without you, Yeonshin would still be caught inside the prison of his own head, and I would’ve lost my mind long ago.” He squeezed Seunggi’s hands in both of his own. “You’re healing, Gi, and you’re allowed to heal. It takes time, and that’s alright.”

“It’s not,” the quartermaster protested, although he did so halfheartedly. He looked up at Haeseon. “If you die out there, I’ll come look for you in the realm of the dead to pull you back up, stupid leg and all, and then I’ll kill you all over again.”

In spite of himself, Haeseon laughed, and hooked his little finger around Seunggi’s. “Good,” he said. “Then I can haunt you for eternity.”

The quartermaster smiled as well, although it fell from his lips quickly enough. “Please don’t die, Haesae,” he said instead, his voice quivering.

Haeseon pulled him into his arms and held him as tightly as he could. “I won’t,” he said, and wished with all his heart it was a promise he could make with certainty.

When the August pulled inland where the other ships had landed, Haeseon’s fright came rushing back to him. True enough, there were not only ships of northern make waiting for them, but ones that looked foreign as well, surely western like Jihan had suspected. One of them, however, flew familiar colours, with white sails rather than dark.

“That must be Iric Ried’s ship,” Daewon said. “I can’t imagine any other sailor would dock their ship together with so many hostile ones.”

“But where are they?” Jun asked nervously. “There are enough ships here for four hundred men at least, but there’s no one here.”

It was true; while the dozen vessels had cast anchor nearly side by side along the shore, there was not a soul in sight as far as they could see. The shore was quiet, peaceful even, and it made Haeseon all the more nervous.

“There are footsteps leading inland,” Jihan said and pointed between two of the vessels, one of which belonged to Freyr’s crew. “If Talya’s sister can make her ship fly, the battle might be happening somewhere in the hills.”

Just as Jun had said, the sheer number of tracks leading inland was like to go beyond several hundreds. They were rushed and portrayed the frantic pace with which the pirates had rushed ashore, yet there was no sound of battle to be heard, no scent of gunpowder or blood in the air, and no sight of life hiding in the snow.

Even when they reached the top of the hill, they saw nothing but peaceful, white lands. 

They had been walking for only a matter of minutes when an arrow came flying out of nowhere and buried itself in the snow by Daewon’s foot. “What—” the first mate exclaimed and recoiled, looking around for any signs of further fire or the archer that could’ve fired it.

“Where the fuck did that come from?” Jihan barked, both of his blades raised as if he expected the enemy to materialise itself out of thin air. “I can’t see anyone, what the fuck is—”

“Jihan,” Haeseon said and grabbed onto his arm. There was something odd in the air in front of them, a tremor of sorts that was in no way natural. It shimmered, as if it was lighter than should be with the grey sky and its harsh winds, and it it wasn’t odd enough, the tracks they had been following disappeared abruptly in the snow some ten meters ahead of them. “Jihan, I think—”

“Fuck,” the captain interrupted, his frame growing taut with realisation. “Fuck, that means…” He did not finish the thought. Instead, he picked up his pace and rushed towards the edges of the oddity in the air, and stepped past its reach at the same time as Haeseon took to the sky with his Blessing’s wings.

As soon as the lot of them passed the barrier, the air caught in Haeseon’s throat as if frozen by the chill that came over him.

Before them, a terrible, rampant battlefield spread as far as the eye could see. Men and women in the hundreds lunged at one another, giving voice to cries of war as they swung their swords to cleave through their foes. Bodies of the fallen lay scattered in the snow, red with blood, while those still living climbed over them without second thought to throw themselves at their enemies. How they could tell one apart from the rest, Haeseon could not say; to him, they looked all the same, full of anger and lust for blood and death.

The war had been hidden from sight by an illusion, the mask’s reach spreading only as far as the very edge of the chaos. It had hid everything from the senses of those who stood outside it, but now that they had breached it, the whole of the battle came crashing around them.

Saga’s ship stood in the snow at the edge of the battle and fired its cannons haphazardly into the battle, uncaring of who they hit. The humongous vessel’s deck was full of life, the amount of people never waning even as more and more of them poured off the deck to join the fight. The captain herself was nowhere to be seen, like to have joined the frey to hunt down the one she wanted dead most of all.

Amidst the chaos, Haeseon caught sight of the fiery red hair of Iric Ried and the uniforms of the Queen’s Sailors. The admiral fought with six weapons instead of one or two, one hilt in each of the hands that had grown out of his back. His sailors remained close to him, loathe to stray in a battle where they did not know who was their ally and whom they were meant to fight.

Bursts of Blessings flew back and forth across the battlefield. A pirate weaved together a clump of the storm clouds and hurled them, flashing with thunder, at his enemies, while another made the earth quiver and move to throw his opponents off balance. 

It was war, as real as Haeseon had ever seen it.

An arrow came flying up from amidst the battle, aimed for Haeseon where he had remained upright in the air. He folded his wings tightly against himself to dodge beneath it and dove out of the sky to where Jihan and the August’s crew were only now gathering their bearings and readying themselves to join the frey.

“I can’t tell who is who!” he told the captain urgently. “Talya and Freyr’s crews are here, as is Iric Ried and his soldiers, and Saga’s, but there have to be more. There were more ships at the shore, there has to be other northerners here as well, or—pirates from the West!”

“Fuck,” Jihan spat for the umpteenth time already, looking around in a frantic attempt to find the proper path for them to take. “The westerners will attack us without hesitating, as will Hel’s ilk, so—brace!”

Some of the pirates, the lot of them clad all in black, had broken away from the fight to come charging at them with weapons raised high. With a hissed curse, Jihan pulled Haeseon in behind himself and went to meet the first one, ducking under their blade and drawing a gash into their abdomen with his dagger.

The pirate emitted no sound at all. No blood came gushing from his wound, nor did he drop the blade from his hand. He simply vanished, his form dispersing into a shapeless smoke and disappearing with the wind.

“What the—” Jihan exclaimed and reared back, eyes wide with bewilderment. As one, he and Haeseon looked around in time to see Daewon cleave through another one of the pirates, only to have it burst into black smoke in the same manner as the first one, and one of Lucya’s bolts dispersed another one. “They’re not real,” the captain said, although he did not let his guard fall.

“They’re all the same,” Daewon remarked and pointed into the midst of the battlefield, where more and more of the black-clad pirates were engaged in combat. “They’re clones of one another.”

“They’re made’a smoke,” Chodan said, although he did not sound wholly certain. He had cut one of the pirates in half with his crescent blade and stared at it with eyes wide as it vanished rather than die. “Smoke can’t hurt us.”

It was all Xiao needed to hear. When another rush of black-clad pirates came rushing their way, he emitted a bellowing roar and charged to meet them halfway. Lucya fired bolt after bolt from his back and dispersed three of the clones before they clashed. Xiao crushed two more under his paws before deeming them a waste of his efforts; he continued his charge without dealing with the rest.

Another two were trampled into dust in his rampage, but then one of the clones lunged at him with their sword raised, and the blade tore deep into the carpenter’s shoulder. A cry of agony rose from Xiao’s throat and he recoiled so violently he nearly threw Lucya from his back, but not before she fired another bolt at the pirate who had come running at them.

The projectile hit the black-clad clone in the heart, but unlike the rest, he did not disperse into smoke. He emitted a strained sound and collapsed, blood gushing from his chest as he fell to the ground, dying.

“It’s a diversion!” Daewon said loudly as they rushed to Xiao’s aid. “The majority of them may be made of smoke, but they hide proper humans in their midst!”

“And there’s no way to tell them apart,” Jihan gritted out, daggers raised and ready. “Don’t let your guard down, everyone! Treat every fucking clone that comes your way as a real threat to your lives!”

With horror clawing at his throat, Haeseon looked around the battlefield in frantic search for whomever could be responsible for the hundreds of clones spread amongst the fighting pirates, as well as any sign at all of Talya or Qasim, or even Freyr. The battle was spread too far, however, and Haeseon was too reluctant to stray from Jihan’s line of sight to search for any of them deeper in the chaos.

A sudden raise in the constant cries of battle drew his attention towards Saga’s ship, his eyes growing wide at the sight of several pirates suspended in midair. A lone woman stood below them, arms raised and trembling before she pulled them back down towards the ground in harsh sweeps. The pirates followed the command of her arms as if drawn against the ground by and invisible force they could not fight, not even when it began to crush them against the earth.

Only when one of Freyr’s crew, in the shape of an enormous white bear, came charging at the woman, did the pressure give in and let the pirates rise once more, although some of them remained unmoving, their bodies broken by the weight of whatever it was she had done to them. The woman rushed towards the ship and jumped, and with a quiver of the air itself, she rose into the sky until she was far out of the bear’s reach.

She did not fly, Haeseon could tell as much. It was as if she was falling through the air, falling in the wrong direction.

A dark shape appeared in the corner of Haeseon’s eyes and made him turn just in time to catch sight of wings of dark leather before something far bigger and heavier than him came barreling into his side. A startled cry rose to his lips as he tumbled through the air, the weight of the shape threatening to knock him down towards the ground. Claws closed around a handful of his feathers and tugged, and his cry turned into one of pain before he lashed out at whomever had attacked him.

His talons caught thin air as his assailant dodged, but it did grant him his freedom. Quick as he could, he flew up higher, his wings beating hard against the harsh winds. A screeching voice echoed from below him and he turned over his shoulder to get a proper look at the man who had come for him.

Dark fur spread along the bones of the pirate’s arms, which had changed into wide wings of leather. Odd appendages grew from the top of his head, like ears but far too big for his head, and when he sneered up at Haeseon, the teeth he bared were sharp as knives. He looked like something out of a nightmare, the same black garb as all of Saga’s men wore draped over his chest to not restrain his flight.

A bat, Haeseon realised, a thrill of dread going through him. A bat’s Blessing.

He did not know if bats flew faster than birds, but it was not something he was intent to find out. The pirate had his eyes on Haeseon, that much was clear, and he’d be damned if he’d give up and let the man get his claws on him again. When the wind picked up again, rather than fight it, Haeseon yielded his weight to it and let it guide his wings, turning sharply in the air.

The bat followed easily enough, his wings more suited for controlled movements than Haeseon’s. He did not need the wind to turn, thus every attempt Haeseon made to shake him off his trail only served to make the distance between the dwindle. Faster, Haeseon pleaded of the canary, dread beginning to eat at him from within. Faster, please!

As if his Blessing had heard him, his feathers flattened themselves against the wind without his intention. He felt his pace increase, as if the rachises cleaved the air itself, and when he canted his flight down into a dive, he fell faster than he ever had.

He curbed his descent just before he would’ve crashed into the heads of those fighting on the ground and turned upwards once more, although not before hearing someone call his name. To his frantic state of mind, the voice sounded like Talya’s. In his shock, he broke his pace and turned, only to rear back when the bat hybrid shot right past him, taken aback by his sudden pause. The pirate’s claws caught his shoulder, and while the impact was more than enough to knock him back, the wound left in its wake was not deep.

My talons are sharper, Haeseon realised as he stared after his opponent. While the bat looked like he was equipped to take hold of him and never loosen his grip unless he so willed it, his claws were not like Haeseon’s, which could cut as sharp as any sword.

When the bat turned sharply in the air to come chasing after him again, Haeseon gritted his teeth in determination. “Come on, then,” he said shrilly and beat his wings harshly to dodge the pirate’s dive before taking off once more. He flew straight upwards, if only for the sake of buying him what few precious seconds he could while the bat broke out of his plunge to rise after him once more.

Haeseon had never fought anyone midair before, and he knew there would be little he could do to outmaneuver the bat as he was. He could, however, use the hostile hybrid’s advantage against himself; when he turned next, he did so knowing the pirate below him was like to close the distance between them. He readied himself, and as soon as he felt the bat’s presence on his tail, he folded his wings and turned, and lashed out with his talons against his pursuer’s face.

The bat barely managed to pull himself out of the way in time, screeching in outrage as he did. Haeseon’s talons missed his face, but they caught his collar and cleaved through his garb. He sank just deep enough to draw a few drops of blood before the pirate was out of reach once more and Haeseon turned all his effort back to flying.

He did it again, rising from a dive so suddenly the bat failed to realise the trap before it was too late, but on the third time, he had seen through Haeseon’s plan. When he turned this time, the pirate angled his body in a manner that brought him right up in Haeseon’s face. He shouted something, his voice made sharper by his Blessing, and it made Haeseon’s ears ache, and threw him off his concentration for long enough for the pirate to all but barrel into him, using the whole of his weight to overwhelm Haeseon and get him into his hold.

He ceased all attempts at flying for the sake of latching onto Haeseon with a vice grip. He folded his wings to grab a handful of feathers with one hand while the other went for Haeseon’s throat, his thin, spindly fingers closing around his neck in a frighteningly strong grip.

An image of heavy iron buckles shutting tight around his throat had the dread in Haeseon’s chest rising fast, but this time, he was not powerless to fight them off. With a sound more akin to a growl than anything the canary would give voice to, he twisted his body with as much strength as he could muster. One of his legs came free, and without a second’s doubt, he kicked up against the pirate’s left arm.

His talons raked through the leathery skin of the bat’s wings, blood bursting from the tears. The grip around his throat trembled and grew loose as the pirate ground his teeth around the pained cry that rose to the back of his throat, but he did not manage to swallow it when Haeseon lashed out with his other leg and sank his claws into the bat’s abdomen.

“Let go of me!” Haeseon said shrilly even though he knew the hybrid would not understand his words. “Don’t touch me!”

With neither of them focusing on staying airborne any longer, they plunged towards the ground by the edges of the battlefield. Haeseon’s ears were ringing with anger and dread, but even in his madness, he had the sense to spread his wings at the very last moment so that when they crashed against the earth, it was the bat who took the brunt of the impact against his back.

They skidded through the snow and Haeseon lost his grip someways before they both came to a halt. The cold of the snow burned against his skin as he struggled to tell up from down and rise to his feet again. His balance was skewed and the world spun when he pushed himself upright, but he could not afford to stay grounded where he was. There was an urgency in him to take to the air again, a desperation to rise back over the battlefield so he could see, see everything that was happening to those he loved most.

The first this he saw when his vision cleared was the pirate who had borne the Blessing of the Bat, and bile rose to the back of his throat. The man was dead, if not by the wound in his side, then by the fall. Haeseon did not need to walk any closer to realise it; he saw it by the way the wings seemed to fall from his arms along with the fur, the strands whithering away rather than withdrawing into his skin.

With its host no longer living, his Blessing was leaving him to manifest somewhere else, and it made Haeseon want to scream with anguish.

A touch to his shoulder had him recoiling so fiercely he nearly smacked the newcomer in the face with his wings, all but ready to use his talons in the way he detested most should he need it. His breathing passed his lips in harsh exhales, ones that did not settle even after he recognised the woman who had come to him.

“You must go, Yun Haeseon,” the vǫlva told him without pretense. She placed her hand back on his shoulder and urged him to stand with surprising strength. “You must go, now.”

“I—I can’t—” The words came slowly to Haeseon in his lingering shock, his world still spinning in the wake of what he had done. “I can’t simply leave, I have to—”

The seer’s hands moved to his face, pulling him close until he was staring right into the hollows of the elk skull’s eyes. “Follow the heart in the mountain,” she said, and for the first time, there was urgency to her voice. “Follow it, and free the beast of slaughter from its chains.”

A chill went through Haeseon. Suddenly, in the vǫlva’s hold, he was afraid.

“Hróðvitnir, Vánagandr, Fenrisúlfr.” Her voice was hoarse, a mere rasp of a sound as she breathed the words against Haeseon’s skin. “Find Fenrir, Yun Haeseon,” she whispered, her blind eyes wide and all-seeing behind her mask, “and unleash the world’s end on those who would see us dead.”

-

*SCREAMS TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH*

HERE WE GO

THE HEART IN THE MOUNTAIN

FENRIR

WHAT IS EVEN GOING ON

AHHHHHHAHAHHAHAHAHHHHHHH—

ALSO HAESEON VERSUS A LEGIT BATMAN JSHDJSHD LET ME TELL YOU I LOVED WRITING THAT SO MUCH HOLY SHET HAESEON IS A BADASS, A BADASS I TELL YOU

interesting fact i learned through research for this chapter; while bats have far better controlled flight, birds are usually faster. ‘S why haeseon’s attempts at shaking off the bat hybrid only served to his disadvantage~~ also i didn’t actually know that the “leathery” part of a bat’s wings is like skin, thus bleeds when cut… although it makes perfect sense in hindsight .__. i dunno, it’s just not something i’ve ever thought of~

also that one pirate from saga’s crew who bears the blessing of gravity, man, if there’s one blessing i could choose, it’d be that one *u* to be able to shift one’s one gravity, turn it around, change the gravity in the air around oneself, alter gravity of others… man it’d be cool UWU also you might’ve realised that she’s the one who makes hel’s ship fly, so like, mad props to her stamina jshdjshd

ALSO also.......... pls they're all so tired they just need to sleep ;______; now seunggi's upset and jihan's upset and everyone's upset and tHE END GAME HAS ONLY JUST STARTED PLS WE HAVE LITERAL GOD-TIER STUFF TO UNCOVER HERE I MEAN IT AIN'T LIKE THE SEER JUST SENT HAESEON TO FETCH A STICK TO POKE SAGA WITH

MKAY

oKAY i need to cALM DOWN i'm just sO HYPED FOR THIS I'VE BEEN PLANNING THIS FOR OVER A YEAR

THIS WEEK IS HYPE AS SHETJSHDJSDH I'M GONNA GO SLEEP NOW

SEE Y'ALL NEXT WEEK WHEN SHET HITS THE FAN A G A I N


	37. ch. 36 - Wings of Rose, Wings of Night

pardon my french but fuck fuck fuck fUCK I’M SO EXCITED I’M SO FUCKING EXCITED OH MY GOD I CAN’T CONTAIN MYSELF I'M LEGIT ABOUT TO COMBUST WHERE I SIT OH MY FFFFFF—

ALSO DO YOU THINK I CAN LISTEN TO HEARTBEAT AND NOT CRY A RIVER OF TEARS EVERY TIME JIMIN SINGS “lost at sea” AND “my heart is on fire for your love” BECAUSE THAT’S HAESEON AND JIHAN AND I JUST—

AAAAAAAAHHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH

i love my life right now okay you don't understand i can listen to heartbeat on repeat and i can write this cHAPTER WHICH IS SOJSDJSHDJH THIS IS A GOOD-ASS DAY LEMME TELL YOU

sO UH YEAH THAT'S THAT ON THAT HOPE YOU ENJOY OKAY

-

Finding Jihan amidst the chaos of battle was all but impossible. The black-clad clones were like a tidal wave, flooding the field and obscuring Haeseon’s sight from where he flew back and forth in search of the captain. He dodged whatever arrows that were fired his way, his ears ringing with the vǫlva’s words all the while.

Finally, he caught his beloved’s voice from somewhere near the edges of the battle, loud as he called for Daewon to watch out for a pirate charging at him from behind. As quickly as he knew how, Haeseon flew over to Jihan’s side and landed, stumbling over an unmoving body he prayed with all his might was not one of theirs or Talya’s men.

“Songbird!” the captain exclaimed. He took hold of Haeseon’s wing and drew him against his side, his other hand raised and brandishing one of his daggers as he looked around in anticipation of an attack. “Are you alright? I saw that winged bastard chasing you through the air. Did he hurt you?”

“He tried to,” Haeseon said, although it made him nauseous to speak of the pirate he had left in the snow. The scratches on his shoulders throbbed, but in his urgency, he hardly noticed. “I’m alright, Jihan, but listen to me. I have to go. I have to—I don’t know why, but the seer told me I have to go. I have to look for—I have to find someone and bring them here to help end this battle.”

Before Jihan could answer, a pirate, western by the look of him, came charging at the two of them. With a curse, the captain let go of Haeseon and turned to face their assailant fully, so Haeseon clutched onto the back of his robes and closed his eyes while his beloved used his knife to cut the pirate open from waist to chest.

Haeseon’s ears rang with the man’s scream, but no matter how loud he was, it did little to drown out the frantic beat of the foreign heart.

When Jihan turned around again, it was to draw him into a quick yet desperate kiss. “Come back to me,” he whispered against Haeseon’s lips with desperation in his voice. “Come back to us, songbird, whatever it takes.”

His words made Haeseon ache. “Wait for me,” he said in return and held tightly onto the captain’s hand, “whatever it takes.”

He waited for Jihan to nod, and then he was off, turning away and taking to the sky once more. There was anguish in his chest for having to leave those he cared for amidst a field of chaos, so overwhelming he might’ve cried, but he carried on, even though he did not know what the vǫlva truly expected of him.

All he could do was follow the mountain’s heartbeat until he crossed the edges of Qasim’s illusion and the battlefield vanished into nothingness. 

The further north he flew, the stronger the winds became. They hurt the bare skin of his collarbones and made his flight all the more difficult, but Haeseon persisted, gritting his clattering teeth. It would’ve been far easier had there not been snow falling as well; the typically gentle flakes felt like shards of glass against his skin, as if the weather itself was attempting to push him away from his destination.

He did not know what it was he was supposed to be doing. The vǫlva had told him where to go, but once he’d reach the mountain from where the heartbeat came, he would be lost for what to do. Find Fenrir, the seer had told him, but he didn’t know Fenrir, not who or what it was, nor how to convince him to help put an end to the war between Talya and her sister.

He did his utmost to not think of the frightening voice he had heard in his dreams, nor the enormous silhouette to which it had belonged.

Haeseon had been flying for long enough for his arms to turn numb with both exhaustion and the cold when he saw a figure moving through the snow many meters below him. He came to a halt in the air and squinted towards the ground, half convinced he wasn’t seeing right; no one in their right mind would venture so far into the wild in the building storm. It was no animal, he could tell as much, but he couldn’t fathom it to be a human either.

The northern chill grew ten times as intense when Haeseon recognised the figure for who he was. An anger the likes of which he had only felt a handful of times in all his life bristled within him, and without thinking twice, he dove from the sky, the wind biting at his face with his rapid descent. He landed harshly in the snow and spread his wings wide, eyes aflame with rage.

“Stop!” he shouted after the boy, who whirled around in shock. “Don’t take another step!”

Freyr spat out a curse in his own tongue, breathless from the fast pace of his trek, his surprise quickly replaced by ire. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he spat. His hand went to his hip, but he was unarmed, his weapons likely left wherever Jihan had ordered them to be stowed while their wielder remained imprisoned.

“I should be the one to ask that of you,” Haeseon said, defiant even in the face of the boy’s hostile gesture. He walked closer, dragging his feet through the deep snow. “What are you doing here, Freyr?”

“Did you come to drag me back to your beloved fox’s ship?” A smile spread Freyr’s lips, but for all his effort to make it sardonic, it was twisted and wrong, more akin to a grimace than anything else. It was familiar, Haeseon realised with a clench to his chest, the same rueful curl of the lips Qasim had shown Jihan when he’d been accused of lying. “Is he angry I escaped from the brig?” the boy asked and scoffed. “He should’ve come himself. You would not be able to take me anywhere.”

Haeseon ignored the slight, knowing it was like to be true; while he was confident he could’ve given Freyr a fair fight, he was at a disadvantage, both physically and otherwise. In spite of his thoughts, however, he moved past the boy until he was standing in the path he’d been walking to hinder his ascent. “I’m not here to do that,” he said, “but I will if you don’t stand down willingly!”

Freyr’s laughter was mocking and every bit as cold as the winds howling around them, but when he sobered up, there was not a trace of mirth in him, whether genuine or wry. “I don’t have time for you, little bird,” he said. “Get out of my way.”

“No,” Haeseon snapped, his temper flaring. There was a warning in the boy’s voice, an unspoken promise of what would happen should Haeseon refuse, but rather than deter him, all it did was feed the anger brimming in Haeseon’s chest. “I’m not letting you go any further.”

His ire was mirrored across Freyr’s face, although amplified tenfold. “I wasn’t asking,” he said with the tone of someone trying very hard not to scream. At his sides, his hands were clenched into fists, tight and shaking, and he took a step closer. “You don’t know what you’re doing, little bird, so move, before I make you.”

“No!” Haeseon said again, his own voice rising with the rising emotions in his chest. He couldn’t believe “I won’t let you do whatever it is you’re planning! Talya is fighting for her life as we speak, and I don’t care, I don’t care if you resent her for not being with you when you were younger, but—”

“What did you say?” The boy had gone still as stone, eyes wide with growing rage as he stared at Haeseon in wait for an answer. There was a hardness to his face now, one Haeseon had never seen either on Qasim’s face or Talya’s, and when Haeseon said nothing in reply, the depths of Freyr’s hatred reared its head. “Did she tell you?” he asked. “Did she tell you about—did she tell you?”

Hatred for whom, Haeseon did not know.

“Of course she told you,” the boy said harshly. “Of course, of course, why wouldn’t she tell her precious, sweet Haeseon? She has told you everything else, after all.” He spat out the words as if they were foul on his tongue. “So, what, now you’re even more convinced than before that I’m a traitor. That’s why you’re looking at me as if you want to tear my heart from my chest, isn’t it? She told you a story of how I hate her for her absence in my youth, and now there’s no longer any doubt in your mind about my betrayal.”

Whatever fright Haeseon might’ve felt upon the boy’s shift vanished in the face of his words. “When will you stop?!” he shouted, overcome by the tidal wave of frustration that welled up within him. “The battle is raging by the coast as we speak, yet the only thing you can think of is yourself! You’re miles away from the fight and you continue to feel sorry for yourself, and for what?!”

He spread his wings wide, more determined than ever to stop Freyr from doing whatever it was he had planned. “I won’t let you pass,” he said loudly. “I don’t care if you hate her. I won’t let you cause Talya any more pain.”

“I don’t hate her!” Freyr barked, all but seething now. “I told you, just as I told your precious Black Fox; she’s my mother!” The boy matched him for every emotion he showed, as if they were his own. He spat out another curse and ran a hand through his hair, tugging sharply at the strands before looking at Haeseon again, gaze aflame with rage. “You’re ruining everything!” he shouted. “I don’t have time for this, I don’t have time to argue with you!” He took another step closer to Haeseon, who spread his wings wider still. “I’ll say it again, Yun Haeseon; get out of my way!”

Haeseon held his ground and shook his head, refusing to budge even when the canary in him stirred with distress. “I won’t!” he cried. “I don’t know what you’re planning, but I won’t let you take another step this way! Whatever it is you’re looking for, I won’t let you use it to hurt her!”

Freyr looked as if he wanted to throttle him. “I’m not going to do that!”

“I don’t believe you!”

“I don’t care!” The boy stood only an arm’s length away now, towering over Haeseon. “I don’t need you to believe me,” he said, “I only need you to get out of my way!”

“I told you, I won’t!” Within Haeseon’s chest, the canary thrashed with dread, but he did not move. “Why would you ever think I’d let you go after learning you’ve resented your own mother all this time?!” he asked, all but hysterical.

“Because I haven’t!” Freyr’s voice burst out of him so loudly it finally had Haeseon rearing back, startled. The rage churning within the boy had grown beyond his control, and he released it all at once, beyond himself with it. “I don’t!” he screamed. “I understood! That’s all I ever did! The Valkyrja’s blood called her to the sea with voices she couldn’t resist, and I understood! I was patient, because I thought if I waited long enough, she would eventually come back to me and be my mother! She would be my mother, like I had needed her to be my whole life!”

When he looked at Haeseon, his gaze was like a knife to his gut, so full of loathing it made Haeseon ache all the way in his bones.

“But she didn’t, did she?” Freyr spat. “Instead, she came back to me with nothing but stories of her sweet Haeseon, such a lovely boy she had met in the East, who was so kind and pure and precious, a boy she would love to take in as her own, as if she didn’t already have a son waiting for her!”

His words forced Haeseon to remember what Talya had told him only the night before, in a voice full of self-loathing. “He never asked me why I had left him,” she had said. “I think he was afraid of the answer, so he said nothing. He only understood and forgave and reassured me, when I deserved none of it.” A terrible realisation came to him upon the recollection, but Freyr did not pause his shouting for long enough to let him speak.

“Every damn time after that, it was always Haeseon this, Haeseon that, Haeseon, Haeseon, Haeseon, no matter what she was speaking of!” he raged, as if he would implode should he keep his anger inside of him any longer. “Haeseon would love to see this Aurora, I want to show Haeseon the North, I want you to meet Haeseon, you would love him, Freyr, people can’t help but love him. It was all I heard every time I met her after she came back from the East, even though I—”

His voice cracked, and Haeseon believed it must’ve been from the damage his shouting caused his throat, but then Freyr reached up to quickly rub at his eyes. “I grew up believing perhaps she didn’t love me as much as I wanted her to because I was a boy!” he screamed and buried his face in his hands, as if he wanted to hide. “I wasn’t a daughter to carry her Valkyrja’s blood, and I tried to understand that as well, but then she met you!” When he looked at Haeseon again, his eyes were red and glistening. “You’re a man like me, and she loves you! I’ve waited for her since the day I was born, yet she seems to love you more than she ever did me!”

So shocked was Haeseon by the boy’s words, his fright for his sudden outburst fading to give way for the outrage that rose in him upon the thoughtless statement. “If that’s what you truly believe, you’re so stupid, Freyr!” he shouted. “She loves you, she loves you more than anything! When I first met her in Shanghai, do you know what one of the first things she told me was? She told me of you!”

His chest ached with the knowledge that while Talya had been afraid her son had resented her, Freyr had feared she did not love him the way he so desperately wanted her to. It ached to know, and the ache turned to anger in him, one that came spilling out of him without pause or control. He drew his wings back into his skin so he could jab a finger into Freyr’s chest.

“We had barely introduced ourselves before she told me of you!” he cried. “We didn’t know one another, but she told me she had a son, someone who was younger than me but already a fine pirate sailing her northern seas! She was so proud, Freyr! She wouldn’t stop speaking of you with all the sky’s stars in her eyes, as if you were the reason they existed at all!”

With his teeth gritted around whatever words still burned beneath his skin, Freyr smacked his hand away from him, but rather than back off, Haeseon surged forward and pressed his hands against the boy’s chest to shove him backwards. He stumbled in the snow and fell onto his behind. “What are you—”

“Every time she spoke of you, she spoke as if you were the best thing that had ever happened to her!” Haeseon’s throat hurt, but he would not stop until he had made Freyr see. “When we sailed North, when we first arrived at these shores, the first thing she did was boast of you! She told us you would one day conquer her to take her place as Cardinal of the North, and she was happy! She was proud, because she wants you to take her place one day!”

Haeseon hadn’t understood it then. He had thought it odd that a mother would want to be bested by her child, but now that he knew both her heart and Freyr’s, he knew why she had been so excited. She loved him so much, she wanted to see him grow into someone who could be better than her, someone who could rise above her own accomplishments even though she had not been the one to help him grow strong enough to achieve it.

“Even when Jihan named you traitor and threw you in the brig, Talya refused to hear it! She was weak from Saga’s poison, but she looked Jihan in the eye and told him she had faith in you! She said she knew you would never betray her, no matter what would happen!” His voice had grown hoarse from his screaming, but he was not done yet. “She trusted you even when she was told not to, because you’re her son!” he said, wincing at the dry drag in his throat. “She loves you, Freyr!”

The boy stared up at him, making no effort to rise from where he sat in the snow. He only looked at Haeseon for a long moment before shaking his head and lowering it towards his knees, his lips pressed tightly together. “Even if she does,” he muttered, his voice thick, “she doesn’t love me like she does you.”

Part of Haeseon wanted to smack him for his stubbornness, so great was his frustration in the face of Freyr’s stubbornness. “That’s true,” he said instead, “but only because it should be true. I’m her friend, but you, you’re her child. You’re her own. You’re hers in a way I could never be.”

For a long moment, the boy said nothing. He did not raise his head nor utter a word, and when his shoulders began to tremble, Haeseon halted whatever prompt he’d been about to speak. He waited, pretending he couldn’t hear the quiet sobs coming from Freyr; instead, he made himself be calm, reminding himself of the fact that the boy was just that, a boy, barely a grown man yet.

He was young, younger than Kyujang, and he had braved his mother’s world for the sake of winning the affection he did not believe she bore for him.

“I only wanted—I wanted her,” he said at last, struggling to speak through the sobs that racked his frame. “I wanted—I became angry. I waited for so long, and—” He rubbed at his cheeks to be rid of his tears, but they fell without pause in spite of his efforts. “I only wanted my mother.”

Haeseon closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, filling his chest with the northern chill before looking at the boy again. “I will ask you one time, and one time only, Freyr,” he said and waited for him to meet his gaze. “Did you betray Talya?”

Freyr’s eyes were red-rimmed from crying, but he met Haeseon’s without faltering. “No,” he said as firmly as he could. “I wouldn’t have. I would never betray her, she—” He pressed his lips together and swallowed thickly when more tears spilled from his eyes. “She’s my mother.”

Upon his reply, Haeseon released the air in his lungs in a trembling exhale, nodding. “Alright, he said and let go of the anger he had clung to. “I believe you.”

The boy’s shoulders slumped and he nodded as well before burying his face in his hands in a last effort to rid himself of his tears. He said nothing, but for now, there was nothing more that needed to be said.

Haeseon allowed the peace between them to carry for only a matter of moments before the heartbeat echoing from the mountain behind him brought his urgency barreling back to him. “We don’t have time to waste anymore,” he said and moved to Freyr’s side to pull him upright by the arm. “Tell me why you’re here. The vǫlva sent me this way as well, so there must be a reason for it.” He threw a glance over his shoulder, at the cluster of hills and mountains. “She told me to follow the heart in the mountain, to look for—”

“Fenrir.” The boy nodded and swiped the tears from his cheeks one last time. As soon as they were gone, however, he was overcome by distress. “That’s why I’ve come,” he said and freed himself from Haeseon’s grip in order to frantically search for something in the pockets of his robes. “The gods of the North chained him within the mountains over a thousand years ago. When Talya heard Hel had ascended from the underworld to hunt for her, she sent me to search for a way to reach the beast of slaughter, should we need his help in the battle to come.”

He withdrew his hand and held it out for Haeseon to see. “Now that battle is here,” he said, “and I had to leave my mother’s side to search for Fenrir.”

Haeseon’s eyes grew wide as he stared at the small stone sitting in the palm of Freyr’s hand. It was dark as coal with a symbol carved roughly into its midst, the odd mark pulsing with a black glow. “What,” he began in a whisper, overwhelmed by the presence of the Blessed Rune, “what is—”

“It’s the Rune of the Crow,” Freyr told him, speaking quickly. “Fenrir was sealed away by gods, and only gods can find his prison. None of us are gods, not in the way we need to be. Talya—my mother has the Valkyrja’s blood, but she couldn’t find him when she tried, months and months ago.” He looked over his shoulder in the direction he’d come, as if he would be able to see the field of battle all the way from where they stood at the base of the mountain. “The vǫlva told us if we found this Blessed Rune, we could fool the barrier hiding Fenrir into believing we were one of Óðinn’s ravens.”

A rush of cold went through Haeseon upon his words. A memory came unbidden to him, of a monstrous creature in his dream, snarling and calling him a liar. “Little crow,” the beast had called him. “But—”

“Will you take it?” The look on Freyr’s face was all but pleading, as was the tone of his voice. “I have to go back,” he said and held the stone out for Haeseon to take. “I have to—Talya can’t win against her sister. She can’t. Any damage she attempts to deal to Saga will be returned tenfold against her by the Blessing of Venom. I have to go back.”

Haeseon’s heart felt like it had ceased at the same time as it beat far too fast for his body to accommodate. His throat became thick where it had been dry and aching only moments prior, and he shook his head, knowing what it was the boy was truly asking of him. “I-I can’t,” he stammered, cold with dread. “I—you know I already bear a Blessing of my own. I can’t take it.”

He knew it did not matter whether he bore one or not. He knew it, but the fear in him made him speak all the same, and it made him want to turn away and run when Freyr told him what he’d known he’d say. “You can,” the boy stressed. “If I use my Blessing to take the canary from you, you can take the crow for your own.”

A cry of anguish went through Haeseon’s body, ringing so loudly in his ears he thought it a miracle Freyr hadn’t heard the canary’s voice. It thrashed violently inside of him, refusing, pleading for him to leave it be. Before his eyes, he saw Ahrim, trembling with pain and rendered too weak to stand as her captain took her Blessing from her body.

But on Freyr’s face he saw his own dread as well. He saw his worry, the same worry he bore for Jihan and everyone else, and he saw his desperation, one torn out of him by their heated argument, until it stood exposed and raw for Haeseon to decide its fate.

“Please, Haeseon,” the boy said when he did not speak. “I have to go back, I have to make sure my parents are alright, I—” He was terrified, Haeseon could see it, like a child who had lost his way. “I’m asking the world of you, I know I am, but I have to go back.” Perhaps it was an act of his urgency, but Freyr went to his knees in the snow and bowed before him, so deep his brow pressed against the ground. “Please.”

Haeseon parted his lips and closed them again. In his chest, the canary shrieked its protest, already knowing what his answer would be. “If,” he began in a trembling whisper, “i-if I do this, you have to swear you’ll return the canary to me.”

Freyr sat up so fast his head must’ve spun, and nodded every bit as fervently. “I will.”

Haeseon shook his head, unconvinced. It was not enough, not nearly enough. “Swear it, Freyr,” he said, “you have to promise me you’ll give it back.” He grabbed tightly onto the boy’s arm, if only for the sake of remaining upright. He could hardly hear his own voice with how loud the ringing in his ear was. “The canary is part of me. It is me, and if you don’t return it, I’ll die. I know I will.”

A look of fear crossed Freyr’s face, deeper than the one already there, but he nodded all the same. “I promise,” he said, nodding. “I swear it, I swear by all the northern gods, and by my name as Talya’s son.”

The air in Haeseon’s lungs left him in a quivering exhale, and when he nodded as well, the despair with which the canary cried out felt worse than a knife to his heart. “Alright,” he pressed out through gritted teeth. He was frightened out of his mind, but he knew he had to do what had to be done. “I don’t—how?”

“Here.” Freyr passed him the Rune of the Crow, pressing it into Haeseon’s trembling palm, before offering him his other hand. “Take my hand,” he said.

The whole of Haeseon trembled so violently he nearly dropped the Blessed Rune. He had never felt an ache the likes of which plagued him then, nor an anguish so overwhelming, but he persisted all the same. He nodded once more and drew a breath to steady himself, and placed his hand in Freyr’s.

A terrible burst of pain went through him as soon as they touched, as if something had seeped into his skin and pulled at his insides, tugging until he thought he might be torn asunder from within. The canary refused Freyr’s Blessing’s command, clutching to Haeseon with all its might, its claws sank deep into his very core, his heart, his soul. It shrieked in agony, a sound that burned its way up Haeseon’s throat and past his lips, but it stood no chance against a Blessing whose purpose was to separate them.

The canary was ripped from him and it hurt more than anything Haeseon had ever felt in his life. It ached so fiercely he thought he might die, and the instant it was gone, a warmth seared its way into his body from his hand where he clutched the Rune of the Crow. It rushed through his veins to every corner of his body and filled him with life, no matter how unfamiliar it was, no matter how wrong it felt.

He cried out and his voice was no longer the same; it was hoarse and throaty, its melodic tune gone along with his Blessing. Where his arms had been bared from his canary’s feathers, black ones burst forth instead, heavier and larger than before. There was a foreign strength to his frame even as he staggered, but it felt hollow, as if his body was refusing to accept it as its own.

Through the haze in his mind, Haeseon realised Freyr had not only let go of him, but he had collapsed into the snow, gasping for air as he clawed at his chest. “Freyr,” Haeseon said and went to his side, ignoring the raspiness to his own voice in favour of fretting over the boy, who was writhing in pain on the ground. “Freyr, what—”

His words were drowned out by the scream tearing up Freyr’s throat, a terrible sound that Haeseon, to his dread, recognised with ease. “I-it’s f-fi-fighting me,” the boy wheezed, the muscles of his neck straining with the effort it cost himself from crying out again. “R-rejecting me, it’s—” He choked on whatever it was he wanted to say and curled in on himself, hissing through a fit of agony. “‘S like it’s try-trying to—fuck, like it’s t-trying to claw its way out my ch-chest to get back t-to you.”

A curious presence flickered in the back of Haeseon’s mind, but it was overpowered by the anguish the boy’s words brought to him. He wanted to touch Freyr, to take his hand once more and take his other half back, and it took all the effort in the world to not do it. “Ho-how can you go back like this?” he asked, beside himself with distress. He felt the boy’s pain as if it had been his own, seeping into the gaping emptiness the canary had left in him. “If you go back to the battle like this, you’ll die!”

Freyr shook his head and pried his eyes open to look at him. The pressure his body was under had caused a vessel in his left eye to burst, red bleeding into the green of his irises. “Go,” he croaked through gritted teeth. The muscles of his neck strained with his speech, the whole of him quivering with the canary’s fury. “F-find Fenrir and set him free be-before it’s too late. I’ll fi-find my way.”

Upon the god’s name, the sound of the mountain’s heart filled his ears once more, beating loudly in the absence of the canary’s cries. It called to him, and the unfamiliar presence within him stirred, eager to heed its summons. The scars along his neck throbbed and Haeseon closed his eyes tightly in attempt to shut out the call, but in his weakened state, there was little he could do to resist.

“Go!” Freyr told him, and even though he wanted to scream, Haeseon did as told.

He turned in the snow and took off, running to build his pace before he spread his new wings, black as night, and rose into the storm-plagued skies. When he did give voice to the agony in him, the cry that left him rattled with the crow’s voice yet it did not reach his ears, deafened as he was by the heartbeat of the beast of slaughter.

Fenrir waited for him within the mountain and Haeseon would go to set him free, to save those he loved and to reunite with the canary, the rest of the world be damned.

-

*clears throat*

YAAAAAAAAASSSSSSS BOI GO FREE THE BEAST OF SLAUGHTER AND SET LOOSE RAGNARÖK WHO EVEN CARES LOOK AT CROW HAESEON GO OH MY GOD

hhhhhhhhhhhECK me up but this chapter has me all kinds of overwhelmed (as you can probably tell JSHDJSHDJH), like not only do we get crow haeseon we also FINALLY get to know why freyr has been the way he's been the whole time oKAY AND THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT LISTEN yeh, he's pretty much been a jealous bratty kid the whole time but :< now i'm all ready to wrap him up in blankets and stuff because growing up with the fear that you're not loved by your parents is enough to really mess with your head, and he just....

like

he and talya have basically been tiptoeing around one another while doing the exact opposite of what the other actually needed. while freyr needed talya to be his mom, talya thought she didn’t have the right to act as his parent and so behaved more like a friend to him, and while talya needed freyr to be open and honest with her about his feelings, he shut them away for fear of finding out she didn’t love him in the way he wanted

:(

aND BOI IS HAESEON A MOOD HE'S READY TO SMACK THE BOTH OF THEM WHEN HE REALISES THEY'VE BOTH JUST BEEN SO DUMB AND THAT'S WHAT'S LEAD TO THIS WHOLE SHITSHOWJSHDJHSD

BUT WHO CARES AY HAESEON IS A CROW AND HE'S GOING TO LOOK FOR FENRIR and oh god let's hope the canary doesn't kill anyone because that thing is nOT COOL WITH ALL OF THIS ._______.

SO YEAH

UNTIL NEXT WEEK


	38. ch. 37 - Fenrir, the Beast of Slaughter

EDIT: made a mistake with the title and called it tsts instead of tstn whOOPS OKAY FIXED NOW SORRY

i'm not gonna say anything here i'm so hyped i'm so excited i'm sO OVERWHELMED I'M JUST GONNA GO SCREAM IN A CORNER OKAY BYE

-

The mountain towered over Haeseon as he drew near, its top hidden by the raging storm clouds. He could hardly see a thing, blinded by the flakes of ice that cut sharply at his skin as he flew towards the heartbeat that called to him, loudly enough to drown the howling of the wind. It had him trembling all the way to his bones, yet all he could do was trust in it and let it guide his way.

His arms ached with the effort it took to fly with the storm bearing down on his wings. When he landed at the mountain’s base to catch his breath, he realised he was crying; whether it was from the wind stinging at his eyes or the product of his worry and anguish, Haeseon did not know. The tears had frozen on their way down his face, and the ache in him grew tenfold upon the recollection of what both Jihan and Talya had told him.

“Don’t go cold in times of sorry,” his beloved had said, while Talya had urged him never to cry whilst he still remained in the North. “Your tears will freeze on your cheeks, and everything will hurt more.”

Haeseon took their words as courage now and wiped away his tears, steeling himself for what was to come.

Although he did not know where to begin his search for Fenrir’s prison, there was a pull of sorts in his chest, a shy voice that told him where to go. The crow spoke to him with strange words, a rattling murmur within his ears guiding him onwards, no matter how reluctantly he wanted to hear it.

You’re not me, he thought and swallowed harshly against the curiosity that flared from the Blessing that was not his own. You’re not mine, and I’m not yours. The only response he received came in the form of a stir of amusement, as if the crow pitied him for his stubbornness, and Haeseon chose to ignore it lest he lash out at that which he could not touch or see.

Hidden between rises of stone and ice at the base of the mountain was a crevice, concealed so well Haeseon would never have seen it had he remained in the air. Snow had piled up at its entrance until there was hardly any room at all to pass, forcing Haeseon to use his talons to dig his way through until he could step inside the mountain.

At once, the howling of the wind faded and left in its wake an eerie silence, one interrupted only by the steady beat of the mountain’s heart, echoing through every corner. The cavern was dark, all stone and glimmering blue ice, and its path sloped downwards, framed by crystalline shards that made it look like the maw of a beast.

Trembling with fear, Haeseon descended into the cave as fast as his dwindling courage allowed. His talons caught on the frozen ground with a sound that made his ears hurt, scraping against the ice in his efforts to stay upright and not slip and lose his balance. Should he fall, he could’ve easily impaled himself on one of the shards jutting out of the ground.

His own heart hammered in his chest, beating at a pace that twice outmatched that of the mountain’s. It raced with naught but dread; the deeper he went into the cavern, the stronger his recollection of the creature in his nightmare became. He remembered its voice and the manner in which it had towered over him, and the anger of it as it called him a liar.

“Don’t think of it,” he whispered to himself, even though he knew it was an impossible thing to do. After all, it was why he had come, to seek out the most terrifying of beasts. “Think of Jihan and Seunggi and Talya, and everyone who will be saved should this go right.”

It took all the effort in the world to not think of what would happen should his task go wrong.

When he had walked for what felt like an eternity, the passage opened up into a wide chamber within the mountain. Haeseon caught himself before he could take a step too far, his path ending in an abrupt descent. A wide pit spread out before him, so deep he could not see its bottom. He wondered for a moment if it reached all the way to the Earth’s core, and shuddered with dread when a pulse of the mountain’s heartbeat rose from the depths of it, beckoning him.

There, a voice whispered in his ear, so quiet he could barely hear it. There, there, hurry.

“Be quiet,” Haeseon said shrilly. His anger towards the crow was unjust and cruel of him, he knew it, but with the absence of the canary eating at him like a sickness, he could not stop himself. The Blessing of the Crow was an impostor within his own body, and he despised it with all his might.

His words echoed in the open space and the mountain replied with another beat, strong enough to shake him to his core. The crow’s urgency tugged at him from within, so he closed his eyes and drew a quivering breath, and leaped into the endless pit.

His wings made the descent easy enough, although he grew more anxious the further down he went. The pit was large enough to accommodate his wingspan at least three times over, but with the darkness of it rising to meet him as he descended, it felt as if the walls of it were closing around him until he could scarcely breathe. The cold grew harsher the deeper he went, until the whole of him was numb with it.

How much longer? Haeseon asked himself over and over, until a flicker of light cut through the dark beneath him. It was not bright by any means and did little to show him where he was or what the pit looked like, but it answered his question all the same.

Only when Haeseon landed did the light grow stronger, if even by a fraction. It seemed to come from the walls itself, the stone of the mountain glowing beneath the ice that covered it. Weak as it was, it allowed him to see where he was; another chamber spread out around him, reaching farther than the edges of the pit. It was circular and wide, but, as Haeseon looked around, he realised with a sinking feeling that there was no path to take from there, no passage to lead him further.

The mountain’s heart had stilled, and in its absence, Haeseon might as well have gone deaf.

“Where?” he asked of the silence. His voice was made high by his distress, but the hoarseness of the crow was there all the same, as if to taunt him. “Where do I go now?”

There was no one to answer him. Biting back a pitiful whimper, Haeseon walked over to the closest wall and touched it with his wing, as if he would find some secret hidden in the ice, something to show him the way. When nothing happened, he turned and gazed around in the chamber, frantic in his search for a way forwards, until he faced a wall of ice and found his reflection staring back at him.

The sight of himself had the dread in him flaring until he might’ve choked on it.

His eyes had never been bright in colour, but now, they were black as tar, wholly so; not only had his irises turned dark, but the black of them had seeped into the rest like ink, until there was nothing to separate his pupils from his whites. His hair had lost its rose colour and turned dark as well, falling long and unruly across his brow. He hadn't realised how long it had grown, reaching down to hide the scars of his neck from sight.

He looked the part of a proper monster, a goblin or demon of ruin with coal for eyes and the night’s feathers hanging from his frame. The rachides were rougher than they had ever been when they had belonged to the canary, and Haeseon wondered if the only reason his skin did not hurt where his wings had grown was only due to the numbness that came with the northern cold.

With a pang of longing, Haeseon wondered what his beloved would say should he see him now. He was no longer a songbird; gone was his voice and the rose of his hair and feathers Jihan so adored. His appearance frightened even himself. Surely, even though he knew the captain was not so superficial to turn him away for how he looked, it made him ache to think Jihan would be repelled by his new form.

Around the base of one of the thickest feathers of his left wing sat the ring of jade his beloved had given him, green against black. “It’s not me,” Haeseon said again, although his words were a plea this time. He stared at his reflection as if it would change with his will. It did not, and it made him want to give voice to the distress in him and scream. “You’re not me.”

He looked twisted and wrong, yet as he looked upon himself, he remembered what Talya had told him of those she thought his likeness. “One of Óðinn’s crows,” he whispered and reached out towards his reflection with the intent to hide it from his sight. He wanted to cover it with his wing so it would be easier to turn away, but rather than spread across the ice, his feathers sank right through, as if the wall had been made of water. “What—”

The ice faded like one of Qasim’s illusions to reveal the path ahead, a tall cavern leading him further still into the mountain. From the depths of it, a sound akin to breathing echoed, every exhale hiding a feral growl. It was a threatening noise, one that had the feathers along Haeseon’s arms standing alert with horror, but he thought of his loved ones fighting a battle they could not win and mustered all the courage he had, and proceeded.

It was not a long path to walk. The light diminished the further he went, but by the time he reached the passage’s end, he could still see what lay waiting for him in the cave. The chamber was larger than the last, yet it seemed far smaller with the presence of its occupant.

Its prisoner.

An enormous silhouette lay across the cavern’s floor, as dark as the mountain itself. Its frame rose and fell with its breath, heavy and rattling like a snarl, and even though the creature was not standing, it was more than twice as tall as Haeseon. Its fur was matted and rough and black as Haeseon’s wings, with no small amount of scars marring its neck and mane.

His ears rang with dread and he trembled from head to toe, but Haeseon stepped into the chamber all the same. The light shifted and he saw a glint of it reflected along the creature’s legs, but then it moved, lifting its great head, and Haeseon cast his eyes down to the ground.

He did it both as a sign of reverence and out of fear; so afraid was he that a mere look at the beast of slaughter would surely have his courage betray him.

The rattle of chains made him hold his breath, petrified as he listened to the creature rise from its rest. The whole of the chamber shook with its movements, rumbling as if plagued with an earthquake until the beast stilled, towering over Haeseon’s quivering form. “You’ve come at last, little crow,” Fenrir said, snarling. His voice echoed in the cavern and inside Haeseon himself, as if he had spawned the words beneath Haeseon’s skin. “Do you know who I am now, or are you as blind as you were last we met?”

Part of Haeseon wanted to deny ever being blind to the beast even in his dream, but pressed his lips tightly together as if the words might slip past him should he be too careless. The beast before him had called him a liar in his nightmare, and Haeseon resolved to speak only the truth now. “I don’t know you,” he said meekly, “not truly. I know you only by name, and it is a name I did not know until this day.” He did not dare raise his head and look upon the god even as he felt his gaze upon him. “But I have come all the same, Fenrir, beast of slaughter, to free you from your chains.”

Fenrir growled in reply, sounding almost as if he was scoffing at what he heard. “And to ask my favour,” he spat and turned away. His chains rattled as he did, although the sound was soft, all but delicate. “You have something to ask of me. Will you do it without looking at me? Are you so afraid you refuse me the courtesy you would show your fellow men?”

“Yes.” There was not an ounce of hesitation to Haeseon’s answer, although it was spoken in a fretful whisper. “I am afraid,” he said, “I’m terrified of you. I’ve heard the truth of your nature as a god in the North, but I know you as nothing but a terrifying creature in a nightmare of mine. I need your help and your favour more than air itself, but—” He was trembling so violently he thought it a miracle he could still speak. “By all the gods, I am afraid.”

“An honest little crow, are you?” The god’s words were mocking and full of spite. “Crows lie, be they Óðinn’s or not,” he said harshly. “You have lied as well. You lied about who you are to pass the barrier guarding my prison.”

Every fluctuation in the beast’s voice had the dread in Haeseon’s chest flaring. Every word he spoke could’ve been his last, should Fenrir take offense from what he said. “Yes,” he managed through clattering teeth. It was all he could do to be honest with the creature who appeared to despise lies with all its being. “B-but I have not lied to you. You can ask me anything you will, and I will answer in truth.”

“I do not believe you,” Fenrir snapped and moved again to shift his weight onto his front paws, each as big as a boulder and armed with claws. “I have no reason to, not until you give me one.”

Haeseon nodded. “Ho-how do I prove myself to you?” he asked.

“Look into my eyes and tell me again, little crow,” the beast said, “and reach your right hand into my maw to show me your good faith.”

A rush of fear went through Haeseon, so strong it had him rearing back. On instinct, he drew in wings against his chest and folded his left over his right, as if it would provide a shield against a god who could’ve swallowed him whole. “My hand—”

Either his dread or hesitance had Fenrir bristling, an outraged snarl rumbling through his being. “Look at me, little crow, look at me!”

Haeseon had never been so afraid in all his life, but he knew he could not refuse. His breath passed his lips in shrill exhales and he failed to draw it into his lungs to calm himself before he raised his head and finally gazed upon the god he had sought out.

Fenrir was every bit as monstrous as he’d been in Haeseon’s dream. He stood several meters taller than him with fur black as night and glaring eyes that gleamed orange and red and yellow all at once. Chains hung from around his legs, although they were not of iron or steel, but appeared all but delicate, thin strings of gilded fabric wound into his ragged fur. Fine as they seemed, they had the god hulking as if he could not stand upright, and it made him seem all the more crazed as he growled and spat Haeseon’s way.

His maw was open and his teeth bared, each one so long and sharp it could’ve crushed through Haeseon’s chest with ease.

“I’ve been lied to in the past,” Fenrir snarled at him. “I’ve been tricked and deceived, and those lies are what had me caught in these chains. I tore the hand off the last one who lied to me, and I will do the same to you should you tell me anything but the truth!” He snapped his jaws shut in demonstration, froth dripping from his gums. “I will tear your hand from your wrist and swallow it should I see fit to do so,” he promised grimly. “Now, place your hand in my maw, or leave!”

It was as if something had lodged itself in Haeseon’s throat to render him unable to breathe. He was nauseous with terror as he took a step closer to the beast and then another, his legs threatening to give in. Every last cell of him pleaded with him to turn away and run, but he shut his ears to them all and raised his arm towards Fenrir’s face.

His feathers drew themselves beneath his skin until his hand was bare and trembling, and when the god opened his jaws wider, Haeseon reached past his fangs until Fenrir could’ve bitten his arm off clean at his elbow.

“I-I have not come to deceive you,” he whispered, his voice quivering worse than his hand. “I am desperate for your help, s-so if the price to pay is my hand, then…” The beast snarled around his hand, its fangs grazing his skin. Haeseon held his breath, like as he was to suffocate on the air itself. “If you are a god,” he croaked and looked into Fenrir's eyes, “show me what a god’s justice is. Show me how to stop those who seek to destroy what I want to preserve.”

Fenrir’s gaze grew narrow, a growl rumbling through his body. “Tell me who you are, little crow,” he said without retreating, his jaw remaining poised around Haeseon’s hand. “You have come where no man has come before, and you have shown me bravery the likes of which only one of Ásgarðr’s gods has shown me before. You have heard my heart and heeded its call.” He shifted his weight once more, the chains chiming. “Who are you?”

Finding his voice was no easy feat, plagued by his dread as he was. “I am no one,” Haeseon said. He wanted nothing more than to look away from the god’s terrible eyes, but he did not dare risk his wrath. “A-at least as far as I know myself. There has never been anything special or peculiar about me, yet Talya—she bears the Valkyrja’s blood—and her seer have said I bear the touch of gods.”

“The touch of gods.” Fenrir snorted, his breath gusting warm across Haeseon’s face. “Pretty words spoken to honour one who does not worship the gods in the North,” he said. His gaze flickered from Haeseon’s face to his neck and back once more. “Those marks on your neck are not enough to make you one of godly descent, whether they come from Þórr’s hammer or not.” His amusement waned quickly enough. “Yet you have found my prison all the same. What gods do they hail in the East? Gods of life and death? Or spirits of the earth and sea?”

“I-I can only speak for my childhood home,” Haeseon said, stuttering through his attempts at remaining as still as he could. A mere graze of the god’s teeth would surely be enough to gouge deep into his skin. “We worshipped our ancestors. We honoured them in death so that they might bless those still living.”

Fenrir grew impatient upon his reply. “By what god are you blessed, then?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Haeseon whispered and shook his head. “There is nothing else I can say. I’ve never been anything other than human. I bear no blood of gods or spirits. I have never been anything different than what I am now.”

The god glared down at him for a long moment, eyes narrowed as if he was attempting to gaze right past his skin and see for himself if Haeseon’s words were true or not. “You are no god,” he agreed slowly, “and you do not even know of me, yet you covet my help.”

He scoffed at his own words, and then he moved away, opening his maw to safely let go of Haeseon’s hand. Relief rushed through Haeseon’s body, so fierce it made his legs give in; he sank to his knees and clutched his right hand tightly against his chest, the whole of him shaking.

“You do not know why I was put in chains,” Fenrir went on, “nor how they saw to it.” Much like Haeseon, the god’s hind legs folded, yet it seemed a cause of the chains wound tight around his limbs. He snarled as he did, as if it hurt him to remain standing for so long. “I will tell you, little crow, and then you will have to choose if the price to pay is worth it.”

Haeseon stumbled in his hurry to rise. “I-I can’t—there’s no time,” he said, distressed. “The battle rages as we speak, we must—”

“I have waited for my freedom for over a thousand years,” Fenrir cut him off harshly. “I will not have you curse it after it has been seen through, so you will hear what I have to tell you now.”

Before Haeseon could do so much as part his lips, the god pinned him under a warning glare, so full of promises of what would happen should he speak in protest, Haeseon’s voice dwindled in his throat until naught but an unsteady breath made it past his lips. Content, Fenrir settled with a scoff, and cast his gaze up at the ceiling of the cave before beginning his tale.

“I was born a son of Loki, the trickster god,” he said. “My father’s ill standing with the rest of Ásgarðr’s ilk caused me and my brethren to be shunned since birth, and as I grew older and stronger, the gods of Ásgarðr began to fear what I would one day become.” He snorted as if it was a ridiculous thought, but there was smugness hidden in his words as well. “Prophecies spoke of the end of their world, of Ragnarök, led by a monstrous wolf to devour the realm of gods and swallow them whole.

“In his dread, Óðinn took me from my father’s side, alongside my brother and sister. While he schemed to raise me by his side to better control me, he threw my brother, Jörmungandr, the great world serpent, into the sea. As for my sister, Hel, he banished her to the realm of the dead and tasked her with tending to the souls of those passed.”

“Your sister?” Haeseon’s eyes grew wide with recognition and he raised his voice before he could stop himself, the fear in him retreating for a moment. “Your sister is Hel?” he asked. “The woman I must stop has claimed to be Hel in human form. She has used your sister’s name to invoke terror in her enemies and to earn the respect of those who sail the northern seas.”

Fenrir scoffed. “I know this, little crow,” he sneered. “Chained as I may be, the world and all its lies are still open for me to see.” Once again, he threw a bitter look towards the ceiling. “The gods chained me because they knew I would one day bring about the end of their world. According to their prophecies, my fangs will kill Óðinn, the king of gods, and every realm will suffer from it, yours as much as any other. The balance of the realms will be thrown off axis and chaos will spread far and wide.”

He looked at Haeseon again and moved closer so he could properly look into his eyes. “So tell me, little crow,” he said slowly, “would you still set me free? I will owe you my favour should you do it, and I will do what you ask of me, but is it worth the price? Is it worth the balance of this world and all the others?”

His taunt made Haeseon nauseous, if only for how little it did to sway him. “Yes,” he said, for the first time speaking without frailty to his words. “Whatever the price is, I must save those I love. I can live with the world around me in chaos, but—” He shook his head to be rid of thoughts of the alternative, and met the god’s eyes without cowering. “I can’t live without them. Not without the man I love with all my heart, and those I love as my own blood.” The nausea within him flared, but he pushed it down and clenched his fists to keep himself from trembling. “The guilt of it will surely be with me until the day I die,” he said, “but I came to free you, and I will do so gladly.”

“Good,” Fenrir said, nodding, and sank the rest of the way to the ground until he was lying on his side. “Then free me, little crow. Break the chains that bind me, and unleash the end of the world on those you would see dead.”

The mere mention of death had Haeseon shuddering, but he shoved the guilt to the far back of his mind and approached the great wolf to better inspect his bonds. Even though he had been given permission to draw near, Haeseon went slowly all the same, far from content in the god’s presence yet. He leaned over Fenrir’s front legs to gaze at the chains, frowning at the sight of them; they appeared to be made of cloth or some similar fabric, and did not look to be strong at all.”

“Gleipnir.”

Haeseon startled at the god’s voice, having not expected him to speak. The god was looking at him, eyes narrowed as if he had read Haeseon’s thoughts. “The dwarves of Niðavellir forged these chains to bind me when none made of iron could,” he said. “Twice the gods tried to bind me and twice they failed, thus upon the third time, they used dirty trickery and lies. They told me they would free me should I fail to break the chains myself, but it was a lie.” He spat out the word as if it was a poison on his tongue. “I cannot remove this magic on my own.”

Upon his words, Haeseon wanted to ask how he was supposed to be able to break that which a god such as Fenrir himself could not, but thought it wise to hold his tongue. Instead, he reached out and touched the chains, gasping as he found them warm against his skin. Carefully, he took hold of one and gave a light tug, throwing a hesitant look at the beast as he did.

Fenrir snorted with bitter amusement. “Do you imagine you will hurt me this way, little crow?” he asked. “Do you worry for me?”

Again, Haeseon thought to deny it, for his own sake rather than the god’s, but decided against it. “Yes,” he said, although he spoke very quietly. “God or not, all beings feel pain, do they not? I don’t like—I don’t wish to cause you pain.”

Fenrir was quiet for a moment before humming in thought. “Curious words,” he said, “for a crow about to set free the end of the world’s balance.”

There was nothing Haeseon knew to say to that, so he pressed his lips together and said nothing at all, and instead took a firmer grip of the chains and pulled. They did not budge, thus, after confirming Fenrir showed no signs of pain, Haeseon tugged at them with all his might. He buried his talons into the ice to keep from slipping as he leaned all of his weight into tearing at the bonds, but they did not move and inch.

When he realised they would not come off no matter how hard he tugged, Haeseon attempted to untie them instead. He stepped around and over Fenrir’s legs in search of a knot that held them together, but even when he moved to inspect his hind legs, he found nothing of the sort. 

“You’re holding back, little crow,” the god snapped at him. “The work of godly beings can be undone only by that which is like it in nature.”

“But I’m no god,” Haeseon retorted in agitation. His voice flared and came out rattling with the crow’s presence, and whatever protests still waiting to be spoken died in Haeseon’s throat as words he’d been told months and months ago rose to the back of his mind.

Blessings are the gifts of gods, the High Oracle in the jungles outside of Kolkata had said as he’d handed Haeseon the Rune of the Storm. Haeseon had never thought of Blessings as such, but now, he reasoned it might’ve been what Fenrir meant. Nodding, he filled his lungs with the freezing air and brought forth the crow’s wings once more.

Still careful to not hurt the beast, he curled his talons around the delicate chain and rose into the air, using the strength of his wings to pull at the bonds. They remained unmoving, but Haeseon ground his teeth and persisted, beating his wings hard and tearing at the chains until Fenrir’s legs jerked with his efforts.

“Harder,” the god urged him, fighting to keep his limbs still under Haeseon’s ministrations. “Harder, little crow, pull harder!”

“I’m trying,” Haeseon said through gritted teeth. His frustration was growing fast; with the worry for those in battle with Saga ever present in him like a sickness, every second that went without budging the chains had him growing more and more frantic, until he might’ve cracked beneath the pressure of it. “Come on, move, you—”

When the last string of his patience snapped, Haeseon turned in the air and let go of the chains, a rattling cry of ire spilling from him. He dove at the bonds, his body shrinking as he did, and used the momentum of his lunge to strike at the chains with the sharp beak of the crow’s form. Again and again, he hit the bonds, until he was so lost in his desperation, he was deaf to the ringing sound that rose from every strike.

“Break!” he cried in the crow’s voice, the shrill sound echoing in the silence of the cavern. “Break, break, break, you—”

“Little crow,” Fenrir said in warning, but Haeseon paid him no heed, so frantic was he in his effort to free the beast of slaughter.

The ring of the chains seeped into his ears and made him deaf, and with all the strength he had to muster, Haeseon struck the bonds with his beak one more time before they shattered with a flash of blinding light.

A pulse of an invisible force burst from the broken chains, so strong it threw Haeseon’s small form to the ground. He gasped in pain, a rattle of a sound spilling from his crow’s form as he struggled to draw air into his lungs to breathe. Every cell of him ached with a pressure the likes of which he had never felt before, as if they were crushed within the grip of a being beyond his comprehension.

The sensation passed as quickly as it had come, leaving naught but fright in its wake. Haeseon flailed his wings in his hurry to rise from his back on the ground, the chamber spinning with his bewilderment. He heard growling and thrashing coming from somewhere in the cavern, the whole of the mountain quaking with it, and when he finally had the sense to take his hybrid form once more, Haeseon saw what he had done.

Fenrir kicked with his legs one last time to shed the last of the chains, the bright fabric torn asunder by his feet. The ice along the walls of the chamber had shattered under the burst of power the breakage had released, cracks spreading even into the stone wall beneath it, but Haeseon could not bring himself to look at any of it.

He could do nothing but gaze upon the god he had freed. He stood upright before Heaseon’s shaking form, far taller now that the fetters that had weighed him down were gone. If it was possible, he was bigger now than he had been mere moments prior, and an aura of raw power exuded from his frame, trembling with the urge to be released.

“Show me the way, little crow,” Fenrir snarled, his voice rumbling through the ground beneath them, “and I will send the liar to my sister’s realm to suffer for all eternity.”

Although he trembled as he did, Haeseon nodded and called upon his black wings to bear him once more. Upon his agreement, Fenrir threw his head back and howled, a long and terrible call that shook the very core of the mountain underneath which they stood. Deep within Haeseon’s chest, the crow cried out in reply; their hearts became one with the beast of slaughter's, and Haeseon was no longer afraid.

-

sO

SO YEAH

HAESEON JUST SET LOOSE THE END OF THE WORLD

GOOD JOB HAESEON

JSHDJSHDJHSDDS I REALISE THAT SOUNDS SARCASTIC BUT I'M LEGIT HOLLERING HERE BECAUSE YAS BOI CHAOS IS WORTH IT TO SAVE JIHAN SO Y'ALL CAN FINALLY GET MARRIED AND SHAG

P R I O R I T I E S

omg also haeseon pls put some clothes on before you go save jihan okay you turned into a li'l crow you're literally naked right now .____. pls get dressed before you fly off!!

also don't be mean to the crow :((( i know you just want the canary back and that you have a literal stranger inside your body but :(((( li'l crow baby is nice too :(((((

so uh can you tell i'm a sucker for norse mythology like i legit had to get as much of fenrir's story in there as i cOULD because i love it okay he was just a pupper who happened to have a dad everyone hates so he was taken from his home and tricked into being imprisoned because stupid odin saw some prophesy and got scared >:T bish deserves to be eaten alive by fenrir >:T

alsO SPEAKING OF BEING EATEN ALIVE

LMAO GOOD LUCK SAGA AND YOUR GANG Y'ALL ARE SO HECKED NOW

also who can't wAIT for jihan to see haeseon now that he's a crow?????? i'm legit screaming with want to write it right now and i wOULD if i wouldn't be on the verge of falling asleepjshjsdhj omg haeseon baby is so worried jihan's not gonna think he's pretty anymore now that he lost his pretty pink feathers :< (but yeah uh his eyes are pretty scary tho like they're completely black, not just the irises but the 

NEXT WEEK

HOO BOI NEXT WEEK WE RIDE FENRIR INTO BATTLE

AWW YISS


	39. ch. 38 - The True God and the False

okay so okay yesterday was the documentary filming thing and something amazing happened okay i'm not gonna say anything about it yet because it's not a certain thing and i don't wanna get everyone's hopes up (including my own) but if it were to happen holy fucking sHIT i would legit die on the spot right here oh my god it would legit be a dream come true

okay

oKAY

IN THE MEANTIME THO

IT'S FINAL BATTLE TIME Y'ALL OH LORD

THINGS LEGIT CAN'T GET MORE HYPED THAN THISJSDHJSHD

THE MUSIC FOR THIS CHAPTER AND THE NEXT IS AS FOLLOWS:

League of Legends - Worlds Collide (ft. Nicki Taylor) 

Imagine Dragons - Warriors 

OKAY HECK SHIT UP FENRIR LEGGO

-

The storm had grown fierce outside the confinements of the mountain. When Haeseon emerged from the cavern with Fenrir following close behind, the skies were dark as night with snow whirling around like shards of glass. The cold had become even more suffocating than before, and Haeseon shuddered even within the thick plumage of his feathers.

“Will you fly, little crow?” the god asked of him. There was a dry sort of doubt in his voice, as if he did not expect Haeseon to be able to see through such a task. “Is the storm too fierce for you?”

“It’s not,” Haeseon said through gritted teeth. The storm might’ve been the fiercest one he had seen yet, but the urgency in him was greater still; he had to return to the battle as fast as he could, and there was nothing to deter him from that. “I will lead the way.”

Fenrir emitted a sound like a snort—he likely knew where the battle was already—but said nothing in protest as Haeseon spread his wings and took to the sky. The howling winds pushed and shoved him from all sides and the mere act of flying caused a terrible ache in his bones, but he gritted his teeth and demanded the crow in him to be stronger still. When he was steady enough, he glanced down at the god to find him waiting, and took off towards the battlefield.

As he flew, Haeseon kept his eyes on the ground beneath him in search of Freyr. He did not know how long he had been in Fenrir’s cavern nor if the boy had even managed to walk at all. When Haeseon had left him, Freyr had looked as if he’d been dying, clutching at his chest while the canary’s Blessing tore at him rom within.

There was no sight of him, however, even when Haeseon flew over the place where they had separated. The boy must’ve recovered enough to walk, or even crawl his way towards the battle, spurred by the same desperation that rang like a siren in Haeseon’s head. I’m coming, he thought and swallowed the anguished cry brimming in his chest. I’m coming, Jihan.

Fenrir kept his pace beneath Haeseon easily enough. His legs were weakened after a millennia of imprisonment, but even though he stumbled over the snow from time to time, he did not slow. On the contrary, he descended the mountain with a brutality clinging to him like a cloak; wherever he set his feet, the snow dispersed and the ground quaked as if the land it self was afraid of the beast of slaughter.

Even the air itself twisted and curled with Fenrir’s presence. Had Haeseon not been so caught in his distress, he might’ve thought of the god’s warning about throwing the world’s balance out of order, but as it were, all he could think of was reaching the battlefield before it was too late.

“I smell blood in the air,” Fenrir said when they’d been moving for the better half of an hour. As far as Haeseon could tell, the coast was still far, yet the great wolf snarled at his own discovery, the fur along his back bristling. “The dead are many, little crow.”

His words echoed inside Haeseon’s ears and he stumbled in his flight when he shook his head to be rid of them. “They’re not ours,” he hissed, to himself rather than the god. “None of us have died.”

He thought he heard Fenrir scoff, but he said nothing, so Haeseon carried on as fast as his wings could carry him.

His arms had began to ache with the effort it cost him to fly through the storm when he finally caught the same scent Fenrir had. The smell of smoke and blood came to him through the storm and made him nauseous, his stomach roiling with what it implied. Faster, he told the crow in him, straining with the effort to beat his wings harder. Faster, faster!

Haeseon’s heart sank like a stone in his chest when the battlefield came into view through the storm. It was open for him to see, the snow painted red with blood and black with the bodies of those who had fallen. He could see it all. Qasim’s illusion was gone, and Haeseon did not want to imagine why it had disappeared.

With no thought of Fenrir, he dove towards the heart of the battle in search of familiar faces, any and every one he could find. The sea of black-clad pirates was still there, flooding the battlefield like a tide and concealing any familiar face from sight. He saw a flash of white that could’ve been either the winter bear from Freyr’s crew or Lucya’s hair, but when he looked again, it was gone, hidden from him by the tide of clones.

It wasn’t until he reached the farthest edges of the chaos that he caught sight of a familiar colour, one that made his heart twist in agony. He stilled in the air, gasping for breath as he struggled to see through the storm. The dread in him mounted; by the time he could recognise the colour for what it was, Haeseon was numb with horror.

Freyr kneeled in the snow in front of two figures, one collapsed and one hardly managing to remain upright. Although there was no blood in the snow at his feet, the boy looked as if he’d been stabbed, his form hunched over and trembling violently. Feathers of the brightest rose sprouted from his skin, but they were incomplete and wrong, as if they had grown from him for the sake of hurting him rather than give him the wings they should’ve.

The Blessing of the Canary still fought him with all its might, even when Freyr was like to die without it.

Once he’d recognised Freyr, Haeseon knew the two behind him had to be Talya and Qasim. The Northern Cardinal was not in her Blessing’s form, but bent over her husband, cradling his unmoving form in her arms. She was shouting at Freyr, who shook his head over and over and refused to leave no matter how the canary tore at him or how his mother pleaded.

Saga stood opposite of them, smiling widely as she observed the scene as if it was some farse made for her enjoyment. There was hardly an arm’s reach between her and Freyr, yet the boy did not stand down or cower. He was all that remained between his parents, and he was ready to die to keep them safe from his own aunt by blood.

When Saga raised her hand towards him, the whole of Haeseon seized in dread. Not only were the lives of Talya and her family at stake, but should Freyr die, the canary would forever be lost to him. Haeseon did not stop for long enough to consider what would happen; he dove from the sky with no thought for himself or whom he was descending upon. There was only desperation in him, and it burned through whatever sense might still have remained in him.

Even now, he could hear the canary’s voice, shrill with anger and distress as it struggled to break free from its prison. It was all he heard, the call of his second half, and he went to it without hesitation.

So focused was Saga on her target that she failed to see him coming until it was too late. Haeseon dove right at her and turned in the air right before colliding with her to bury his talons into the shoulder of her robes. The momentum of his descent sent the both of them tumbling into the snow, skidding backwards and away from Freyr. Haeseon heard someone call his name, but it was lost in the chaos as the world turned over and over. His body ached every time he crashed into the snow and was torn back up, but he clutched hard onto the garb in his claws all the same, determined to keep her away from his friend and the canary.

As soon as their momentum began to falter, Saga emitted a sound like a growl and reached up blindly, flailing as she attempted to take hold of him, uncaring what limb she’d catch. Still disoriented by their tumble, Haeseon was not quick enough to react; she caught hold of a handful of his feathers and pulled, hard, and while the tug hurt something fierce, far worse was the corrosion that spread from Saga’s touch.

The black feathers rotted away and allowed her poison to race up towards his arm. The first touch of it against his skin was torturous, as if she had pressed a burning iron against him. He cried out in agony and released her, recoiling and shoving himself as far away from her as he could go. It was a pain the likes of which he had never felt before, as if every last cell of him had gathered where the poison had touched him and caught flame.

“Haeseon!”

Through the tears burning in his eyes, he turned to Talya, who had risen from where she’d been kneeling by Qasim in the snow. She had taken her hybrid form, fur stretching ragged across her arms and back, with claws tipping her fingers. The Northern Cardinal attempted to take a step Haeseon’s way, but fell back onto her knees next to Freyr with a sharp cry, her legs too weak to bear her weight.

Before Saga could recover and rise from the snow, Haeseon pushed himself upright, his teeth gritted hard against the pain tearing at his wing. He staggered as he went and when he reached Talya and Freyr, the sight of Qasim made him want to scream. Saga’s poison had gotten to him, the whole of his right arm green and black with rot. He was not conscious, but he jerked in pain for every breath he drew, his voice strained with tension when he cried out.

“Haeseon,” Talya said again, but he ignored her and turned around instead, spreading his wings wide to shield them just like Freyr had done on his knees. His left arm trembled with the pain of the venom, but Saga had risen to her feet glared at him with all the hate in the world, and he would not stand down now. “Haeseon, you’re—please, you have to go!”

“I won’t,” he said, his teeth clattering with the tremor in his voice. Opposite of him, Saga laughed, yet the sound was utterly without glee, a harsh, frustrated sound. “I won’t leave you.”

“You can’t fight her!” Talya insisted, her voice growing loud with urgency. “You can’t beat her, you will die if you touch her!”

“I won’t leave you!” Haeseon said again, every bit as loud. Saga walked closer, but he held his ground all the same. She was speaking as well, spitting foreign words his way, ones of anger, hatred, exasperation. “I don’t care what she is, I’m not abandoning you and your family!”

Talya tried to shove him out of the way, but there was no strength in her. All she managed was to clutch at the hem of his tattered robes. “You’ll die!”

“So will you!” The rattle of the crow’s voice clung to Haeseon’s words and made them rough, but he did not care. “If the choice is between leaving you to die or fighting for the chance to save you, no matter how small it is,” he cried, “I choose the fight!”

Saga’s men began flocking to her side, breaking from the battle to stand by her as she made her way closer yet, still shouting in frustration and pointing at Haeseon as she did. The war may have been raging for hours already, yet there were still hundreds of them, be they clones of smoke or real men. It did not matter who they were; Haeseon held his ground all the same, refusing to lower his wings even a fraction.

“I won’t have you dying for me!” Talya said, pleading as she tugged weakly at his robes. “You’ve done enough, all of you have, so please, Haeseon, you have to—”

A howl tore through the battlefield and drowned Talya’s voice along with Saga’s and that of all her men. The ground quaked with it and the wind stilled, and Haeseon did not have to look to know he had come. Relief flooded his veins, no matter how weak it was in comparison to the rest, spreading through him with the quivering breath he drew.

Fenrir emerged from the storm and onto the battlefield like a creature springing forth from the depths of a nightmare. Where Haeseon had felt so small before Saga and her army of shadows, the beast of slaughter seemed far larger than he had in the cavern or on their way. He towered over him where he came to stand, huge and vicious behind Haeseon’s rigid form.

The men around Saga faltered and drew back, shouting in alarm and dread, and no matter how Haeseon despised them, he could not fault them for their fear.

“Is it her?” Fenrir asked, snarling. His voice was terrible, more so than it had been before, as if the mere sight of Saga had sparked his fury. He stood over Haeseon, hunched over and hulking as if it was by great effort he kept from charging at she who had taken his sister’s name for her own. “Is she the one, little crow?”

“Yes,” Haeseon said and felt no sympathy for Saga, whose anger had vanished upon the sight of the god, only to be replaced by horror. “She’s the one you have to stop.”

Behind him, Talya had gone silent and still, staring up at the god with eyes so wide they might have fallen from her skull. Her lips were parted and moving, yet there was no voice to her words, no words to bear the extent of her awe and her fright. Freyr looked the same, although his head was lowered, either in exhaustion or dread, or as a gesture of reverence for one of the many gods he and his own worshipped as sacred.

The rumble of Fenrir’s growl grew louder still, like the churning of thunder. “I will not simply stop her,” he said harshly. “My jaws will kill, nothing more, nothing less. This is why you freed me, little crow.”

“Yes,” Haeseon said again and ignored the ring in his ears. The whole of him was trembling, but it was not with fear; he was one with the beast of slaughter, he and the crow, and he knew he had nothing to fear now.

“Speak the words,” Fenrir urged. His impatience was palpable, twisted with rage and a lust for blood that would sink into the earth as soon as he was freed from the favour he owed Haeseon. “Give me the command. Tell me, so I can fulfill my purpose.”

Haeseon met Saga’s eyes and wondered, numbly, if she could understand him. If she could hear Fenrir’s words in her head in the same way he could. In the end, it did not matter; Haeseon nodded his head and accepted the fate that would follow as he said, “Kill her, Fenrir, beast of slaughter.”

Fenrir threw back his head and howled once more, a sound that all but took away whatever still remained of Haeseon’s hearing. The beast broke away from the ground, leaping over him and bounding towards his target, who reared back as fast as she possibly could. Saga shouted at her men to stop Fenrir and her men complied; even though they went with horror, they rose to fight the god all the same.

Even then, Haeseon did not falter in his stance. On the contrary, he turned to Freyr and Talya and knelt beside them to help Qasim stand upright. “We have to go,” he said urgently and curled his wings around the helmsman’s arm. “Not all of them are brave enough to face a god in battle. Those who aren’t will come for us instead. We have to go.”

True it was; while the army of black-clad pirates, clones or no, flocked around Fenrir, some broke from their ranks and rounded the beast of slaughter to aim for he who had given the command. They were real men, Haeseon knew. Clones made of shadows and smoke felt no fear, after all.

“You must go,” Talya croaked and shoved weakly at Haeseon’s wings. “If they kill you before Fenrir kills Saga, wh-who knows what he will do. You freed him, sweet Haeseon. You, more than anyone else, must live.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Haeseon hissed even as his body grew tense upon the pirates’ approach. They were armed where he was not, bearing sword or axe or both, and whereas he stood alone, there were seven of them coming his way. “Whatever happens, Fenrir swore to do as I asked if I freed him!”

In the back of his head, the crow shrieked in warning, and Haeseon whirled around to face the pirate who had come so close he was raising his sword to strike. Should he swing it, Haeseon would be powerless to stop it; he bore no weapons and could barely move his left wing, so he did the only thing he knew and prayed the crow’s voice was as strong as the canary’s.

Haeseon filled his lungs with air, and released the crow’s voice in a scream so loud it tore at his throat. It was not as shrill as the canary’s nor as sharp, but the power of it shocked even himself, a high ringing rising to his good ear. His voice was rattling and piercing all at once and had the man staggering, but for all its strength it was not what had the pirate jerking away from Haeseon in fright.

As soon as the cry left Haeseon’s lips, a murder of crows descended from the storm like a strike of thunder and surrounded him, lashing out at those who came near with beak and talons, pecking and clawing at whatever they could reach. They shrieked in the same voice Haeseon had, over and over and over until the pirates ceased their approach, shouting amongst one another for what to do.

There were forty of the black birds at least, circling Haeseon and those he wanted so desperately to protect. In his chest, the crow cawed in delight upon the sight of its comrades, and no matter how reluctant it was, as he watched the crows frighten off the pirates who had come near, Haeseon gave the foreign Blessing his thanks.

“Send them away,” he asked of the crows, even though he could hardly be certain they could understand the words he spoke. “I can’t let them close, I won’t be able to—please, if you can, send those men away.”

His request was ridiculous to ask of a flock of birds, but as soon as he had spoken, several of the crows broke from their circle and shot towards the pirates who had drawn near. Haeseon could not see what they did, but the voices of the men grew louder than they’d been before, flaring in ire or distress, or both as they struggled to keep the vicious birds away from their faces. The crows were quicker than their swords and their talons just as sharp, and it did not take long before the pirates lost their ambition of reaching Haeseon or those he wanted to keep safe.

As soon as the pirates had retreated, the birds returned to their formation, keeping their protective circle around he who bore their Blessing.

The crows circling the four of them did not disperse until a new voice called out to him, the very voice Haeseon had been most desperate to hear. Likely the birds felt the immense relief that rose in him as if it had been their own; when Jihan approached them, the crows broke their formation and flew back up into the sky, although they did not stray far from the battlefield.

“Jihan,” Haeseon said hoarsely, his throat still aching from his cry. So heavy was his relief that his legs gave in and he fell to his knees in the snow, tears burning behind his eyes when the captain hurried to him and placed his hands on his shoulders.

“Songbird, what—” When Haeseon looked up again, Jihan was staring off to the side, eyes wide as he watched Fenrir’s rampage through the sea of black-clad pirates. The sight of the god, five meters tall and as vicious as one would expect the beast of slaughter to be, had him dumbfounded with shock. “What the fuck is that?” he managed at last, sounding so like himself, Haeseon might have laughed had they not been kneeling amidst a war.

“A god,” he said instead, unable to look away from Jihan’s face. He was bleeding from a cut to his temple and his lip was swollen from a bruise that spread along his chin. He was hurt, the robes at his upper right arm dark with blood, but he was alive. “A true god of the North.”

“A true—” The captain looked at him then, properly looked at him, and the words died on his tongue. His eyes grew wider still as they flickered between Haeseon’s own, from his face to his hair and then down to his wings, his lips moving soundlessly as he took in his appearance. Without managing a word, Jihan tore his gaze from Haeseon and looked at Freyr instead, who had collapsed in the snow, still sprouting feathers of rose haphazardly across his body. At once, his expression became grim. “Songbird…”

Haeseon shook his head to dismiss the captain’s worry before it could properly begin to form. He closed his eyes, remembering how they had looked in the reflection in the ice, and cast down his face so Jihan would not have to see. “He helped me,” he rasped, struggling to keep the crow’s rattle from his voice. “Freyr, he—we were wrong about him, Jihan. He helped me. It was the only way. I had to find Fenrir and set him free, and without the crow’s Blessing…”

Behind him, the canary continued its struggle, its cries ringing in Haeseon’s ear. It had him shuddering, another scream building in his throat, born out of the tormenting hollow his other half had left in him in its wake.

Jihan’s grip on his wings tightened for a moment before he let him go only to take Haeseon’s face in his hands instead. He did not force him to raised his head, but his thumbs stroked the skin beneath Haeseon’s eyes, so carefully it made him ache. “Look at me, songbird,” the captain said.

Haeseon did not want to. He did not want to frighten Jihan with his eyes and he did not want to see the captain look at him as if he were a stranger. He did not want to, but Jihan’s touch was gentle and his voice pleading, so Haeseon mustered all the courage he had left and raised his head and met his beloved’s gaze.

For a long moment, Jihan only looked at him. He did not stop caressing the cold skin of his cheeks and he did not recoil at what he saw. He only looked at Haeseon, one hand moving to stroke the base of the black feathers that had grown from just below his jaw. “Songbird,” he said, and Haeseon shuddered at his voice, so full of reverence. “Over and over, you surprise me. I can’t believe it, I can’t imagine—”

He drew an unsteady breath and shook his head, and leaned close to press his brow against Haeseon’s. “How strong you are, my love,” he murmured, and Haeseon wanted to cry. He wanted to allow himself to crumble, to fall into his beloved’s arms and never rise from them again, but he couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t, no matter how dearly he wished it.

The battle still raged, and they were not yet safe.

“What about the others?” he asked, 

Jihan shook his head, still holding Haeseon as close as he could. “They live,” he said with every bit as much relief as Haeseon felt upon hearing his words. “Xiao was stabbed in the arm and shot in the shoulder. Lucya is keeping him safe, and Daewon is making certain nothing happens to Jun. But Chodan—” His hands trembled against Haeseon’s neck. “He was struck down by a woman with a Blessing to make the earth move,” he said, his jaw taut with anguish. “She crushed his legs beneath a wave of stones as big as dogs. He might—even if he lives, he will never walk again.”

Whatever relief Haeseon had felt was replaced by a terrible ache for the gunner’s aid, more so when he thought of Yeonshin and remembered the surgeon was in no state to help anyone but himself. For the umpteenth time, he wanted to give voice to his emotions and scream, but he ground his teeth harshly against the urge and looked up in search of Fenrir instead, his heart sinking in his chest at the sight of the flood of clones standing in his way to distract him from his target.

The beast of slaughter had lost sight of Saga, his mind set on striking at the men flocking around him, even as they dispersed in a puff of smoke at impact.

“Fenrir can’t be overwhelmed,” Haeseon said with no small amount of urgency to his words. “I don’t know the extent of his powers as a god, but if he can’t reach Saga, he—” He looked Jihan, pleading, even though he did not know what it was he wanted the captain to do. “She can’t escape,” he said. “No matter what, we can’t let her slip away.”

“I know,” Jihan said, nodding. Upon Haeseon’s desperate tone, the captain took on one of determination, just as he always did for the sake of reassuring those who relied on him. “Stay here, songbird,” he said and rose to his feet. His touch lingered on Haeseon’s skin, all but burning. “Call those crows back to your side, and be safe. I’ll find a way to be rid of the clones.”

As the crew’s captain, as their anchor and safety, Jihan always spoke with finality in times of distress. He did it so the rest of them would be calm even when things seemed hopeless, and so, as Haeseon watched him take off back towards the heart of the battlefield, he knew his beloved would do as told. He would remove the obstacle from Fenrir’s way, and then they would finally know peace.

-

MKAY 

OKAY YUP

TIME TO DIE Y'ALL

okay but once again i gotta just say jihan is husband of the year okay? or more like fiancé of the year bUT STILL HE'S SO GENTLE WITH HAESEON OKAY SO PROUD AND HE ADMIRES AND LOVES HAESEON SO MUCH I JUST—

"How strong you are, my love."

ME, THE AUTHOR: *SOBS HYSTERICALLY*

goddayum i will die for these characters istg i will

RIGHT WELL

FENRIR IS HERE AND HE'S HUGE AND READY TO TEAR SAGA IN HALF OKAY I LOVE THIS SONG, NOT TO MENTION HAESEON SUMMONING A LEGIT MURDER OF CROWS TO PROTECT HIM oh my god haesae baby you gotta show the crow some love it's so chaotic but gOOD OKAY

uGH can i just keep the crow around forever omg someone else on the august should have it just so it wouldn't have to go UGH CROW BABY

not that it holds a candle against canary baby bUT STILL >:T

mKAY

i'm gonna film another documentary type thing with KBS on saturday aND IF THAT THING THAT I MENTIONED IN THE BEGINNING OF THE CHAPTER GOES ANYWHERE I'LL LET YOU KNOW OKAY IT'S A BIG-ASS THING AND IT'S EXCITING AS ALL HECK SO YEAH KEEP ALL YOUR FINGERS AND TOES CROSSED AND HOPE FOR THE BEST

UNTIL NEXT WEEK (by which time i've hopefully stopped screaming)

BYE


	40. ch. 39 - Where the World Ends

i am like one minute from being late aYYY WE MADE IT ON TIME NO MISSED DEADLINES HERE

jsdsjjshdjh i'm still waiting on updates about that super fricking exciting thing i told you about last time and like i so want it to go through if only so i can tell you guys because holy shit if it does happen it's gonna be sO HECKING COOL AND Y'ALL WILL LIKE IT TOO AND OH MY GOD

but no no, no getting my hopes up okay it's a long shot okay i'm calm i'm totally cool

alsO I DUNNO HOW I COULDn'T RECOMMEND BTS' Not Today FOR THIS CHAPTER AND THE LAST HOLY CRAP THAT'S LIKE THE PERFECT OST FOR THESE TWO CHAPTERS OKAY??? FRICKING CHONG JOJUN BALSA EVERYBODY

otherwise the playlist is the same

OKAY LET'S GO

-

There was no end in sight of the black-clad clones, no matter where Jihan turned amidst the chaos of battle. For every man or woman not part of their horde, there were a dozen men of smoke and shadow to match, with pirates of flesh and blood hidden in between. Every time he struck one down, it dispersed in a cloud of smoke that blinded him and threw him off his guard for long enough for a new one to take its place.

If not for the true pirates, the captain could’ve charged through the tidal wave with his eyes closed until he found the one he was looking for. The thought came to him amidst a fit of coughing, having drawn a lungful of smoke upon cleaving through yet another one of the clones. He staggered back, struggling to keep his eyes open through his hacking, and his gaze fell on an axe lying discarded in the snow, framed by blood that had undoubtedly belonged to its wielder.

“Fuck,” he hissed and stooped to take the axe from the ground. He found a sword after that, and another and another, until he held five weapons in his arms. With his right hand, he bent them out of their shape until they form a shield in his left, armed with thorns of iron and steel. He sheathed his daggers and took hold of the grip with both hands before resuming his advance, and hoping no one he knew would stumble into his path.

With his full weight behind the shield, the clones went down far easier than before. The thorns on his shield had them dispersing one after the other with little resistance; only when he crossed paths with one of the true pirates was Jihan forced to stop. To save himself from being impaled, the man thrust out his hand against the shield to break Jihan’s momentum. He swallowed his cry of pain as the iron thorns sank into his palm but held his ground all the same.

Cursing, Jihan dropped the shield in favour of drawing his knife from his hip. With the pirate made slow by his pain, he barely had time enough to raise his own sword before Jihan thrust his blade through the man’s throat. He went down with a gurgling noise, blood gushing onto the snow.

“Is there no fucking end to them?” the captain said through gritted teeth. He picked up his shield once more and looked around, the skin along his neck prickling at the sight of Fenrir. The god appeared wholly lost to his own rage, striking down so many of the clones he blinded himself with the smoke they dispersed into upon death. “If he can’t get past them all, how am I supposed to—”

A pained grunt rose from behind him and had him whirling around, dagger raised and ready. His eyes grew wide upon the sight of Ahrim, just as she shoved a western pirate onto the ground, having impaled him through the gut with her right arm turned into sharp steel. With a sharp exhale, she straightened back up, only to go tense the instant she realised Jihan’s presence.

The captain regained his composure first, noticing the way she raised her sword-turned arm a few inches higher upon the sight of him. “Are you here to stop me?” he asked harshly, his own grip around his knife tightening even as he kept it at his side. “Will you have another go at my life?”

“No,” Ahrim spat, although neither her tone nor her stance was sincere in the slightest; truly, she looked like it was just what she wanted, to lunge at Jihan and pierce him like she had the western pirate. “Talya told us you were not to be touched. None of you. Said you’d done nothing wrong.”

She spoke with such venom in her voice, the captain did not have to imagine to know how vehemently she resented the Northern Cardinal for her order. “But you would try and kill me if she hadn’t told you not to,” he stated. Just like her, he did not ease out of his defensive stance, even when he scoffed and made to turn away. “I don’t have time to humour you. I have to get rid of these fucking clones.”

“You’re so—” Whatever it was Ahrim wanted to call him—likely not anything good—she swallowed her words with no small amount of reluctance and raised her left arm, untouched by her Blessing, to point towards Saga’s ship. “The man you’re looking for is there,” she said stiffly. “There’s a pirate hiding amongst the sails. He’s the one making the clones.”

The enormous vessel had fallen onto its side amidst the battle, pushed down by the many Blessings that had affected the field of chaos on which they fought. The sails were a mess, tangled amongst the broken masts and yards. Sure enough, they would make for great cover.

“Why are you telling me this?” Jihan asked of her, far from eager to trust a word past her lips, even if they were helpful for the goal he had set. “You were heading the same way, were you not? Are you expecting me to do your dirty work for you?”

“Yes.” Ahrim’s answer was blunt and direct, and she was moving before Jihan even had the chance to rebuke. “I have to find my captain,” she said before throwing herself back into the battle without sparing him another look.

Jihan stared after her, debating whether or not it was wise to have her reunite with her captain at all; had he not been so pressed for time, he might’ve followed her to ensure she did not carry out some secret scheme. Instead, he hissed a curse under his breath and turned the way she had pointed out for him, and took off.

The battle was not so hectic around the fallen ship, what with the mess of torn shrouds spreading across the grounds to snare anyone not constantly looking at their feet. The masts had broken off upon crashing against the ground or hung by a few splinters of wood, and they provided ample cover for Jihan as he made his way closer.

He realised quickly enough that Ahrim had been right; the black-clad clones were spawning from within the clutter of the broken ship. A pair of them came sprinting past where Jihan stood pressed up against the broken crow’s nest, splitting into four and then eight as they ran to join the frey. The captain stared after them in a moment of disbelief before carrying on, taking care to stay out of sight.

The clones would hardly give him trouble should he be discovered, seeing as they were made of smoke and nothing else, but he did not know how much their maker could feel through his creations. He might’ve been able to see through their eyes, so Jihan remained hidden as he delved into the mess of broken sails.

Finding the man who had made the clones was easier than he’d expected, so much so that the captain wondered if he’d even bothered with subtlety at all. The pirate looked the same as the clones, dressed in black from head to toe, and stood alone and calm amidst the fallen masts as if he did not care whether or not someone found him there. The whole of his frame seemed distorted, as if the edges of his body were smoldering in the air. Jihan knew it must’ve been an effect of his Blessing, one surely related to the smoke the clones dispersed into upon touch.

The clones emerged from him like shadows of sorts, stepping forth from his chest and taking off without so much as a command or word of guidance. For a brief moment, Jihan wondered how he could sustain creating so many of the clones—surely, there must’ve been a limit to how much of his Blessing he could conjure—but as he watched the pirate work, he realised the residue of those who’d been defeated was making its way back to him through the air, giving back the smoke he had used to make the clones in the first place.

When he had waited long enough, Jihan set down his shield and quietly stepped out from hiding, moving far enough to have a clear view of the pirate’s back. He raised his dagger over his head and took aim, and without making a sound, he threw the knife at the man’s shoulder.

The blade flew through the air with a sharp whistle and found its mark with little error, but whereas it should’ve sank into the pirate’s skin and made him bleed, it fell right through his body as if he was naught but a mirage.

“What the fuck,” Jihan hissed and drew his other dagger at the same time as the man turned to look at him. In his distraction, the clones ceased to emerge from his person, although the smoke continued to seep back into him.

“Here comes the captain from the East,” he said dryly, as if he was bored with the affair of battle. He looked at Jihan with contempt and an air of superiority Jihan knew was a product of being an ally of she who claimed to be a goddess. “Has he come to kill me, I wonder? Surely, he wants to try.”

Jihan had never thought himself fluent in the tongue of Iceland. For all the years he had practiced it, it had been hard for him to pronounce it properly due to its vast difference from the language he had spoken since birth. Even so, he understood it well enough, and replied in kind. “I will do more than try,” he spat and took some small pleasure in the surprise that spread across the man’s face. “I can kill you, and I will.”

The pirate schooled his face quickly enough, his lips curling up into a sardonic smile. “Arrogant,” he said, “just as the tigress. Are you as senseless as her, too?” He sighed, the edges of his body quivering with it. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose. You may try your best should you please, until I grow bored and kill you instead.”

“Fine by me, bastard,” Jihan said in his own tongue and stooped to grasp a handful of snow in his right, reshaping it into a dagger of ice to replace the one he’d thrown. He hung back for a moment, waiting, but when the man did not move, Jihan did instead.

He struck at the pirate’s chest first, drawing a sharp gash across it with his regular dagger before shoving the one made of ice into his abdomen and twisting. With all the strength he could muster, he twisted both of them and pushed them apart, carving through the whole of the man’s torso, yet the pirate did not make a sound, not in pain nor agony. He hardly even moved, and when Jihan drew back, there was naught but smoke billowing out of the wounds he had gouged across his chest.

The gashes closed themselves up after only a moment of seeping smoke, and the pirate’s smile remained intact.

“Fucking—” Jihan hissed and dove in once more, this time aiming for the man’s throat first, then his shoulder and then his thigh. The result was the same; the blade of his daggers sank into his flesh far too easily, and they drew not a single drop of blood, only smoke, dark and thick.

When he retreated the second time, a flare of ire went through Jihan upon the smugness of the man’s smirk. If only for the sake of his own mood, he hurled the dagger of ice at the pirate’s face and watched it simply fall through him all the while the captain used his own Blessing to turn the ivory encasing of his prosthetic arm into a sharp blade, big as a sword.

He lunged again, and this time, he swung the white blade with all his might at the pirate’s midst, shoving with all his weight until it had cleaved straight through his waist, severing bone and guts alike.

“Such violence,” the pirate said with the tone of someone speaking of the weather. He sounded every bit as bored as before even as the whole of his lower body burst into smoke to leave him naught but a torso floating in midair. “Do you believe you can quell something as free as smoke with brute force, Choi Jihan?”

Jihan did not bother replying, too repelled by the sight of the pirate’s half body suspended in the air with no legs to hold it up. He could only stare, eyes wide and lips parted, as the smoke he had scattered slowly came back to its master, forming bones, muscle, and finally the same shape his legs had been, clothed in the same black garb. “What the fuck,” he said under his breath, plagued by disbelief and no small amount of disgust.

So thrown off guard was he by the sight that he failed to notice one of the clones had returned to their master before it stood right behind him. With a curse, Jihan whirled around and swung his sword-shaped prosthesis up as a reflex for deflection. The clone’s chest was cleaved in two, but rather than simply evaporate, the smoke burst into the air around him and drew itself tight around his head, until it was so compact he could hardly see.

Or breathe; he clamped his right hand tightly over his nose and mouth to stop himself from breathing in the gas that was, without a doubt, toxic.

“You’ve had your fun, Eastern fox.” The pirate’s voice was distant through the thick layer of smoke that enveloped him. “Now, it is my turn.”

Fuck, Jihan thought, twisting his body left and right in attempt to be rid of the smoke or even see past it. It stung at his eyes and made them water, and a dull pulse was already beginning to grow in his ear, louder for every second he went without breathing. His blood rushed to his head, throbbing with the urge to draw breath even if it meant filling his lungs with the black smoke surrounding him. His chest burned with it, yet no matter if he moved forwards or back, the suffocating gas chased him until he might’ve passed out from lack of oxygen.

In his disorientation, he thought of Haeseon, and at once, a clarity came to his mind. He dropped the dagger from his hand and grabbed hold of the furs around his neck and shoulders, tearing it from its bonds at the same time as he urged it to change its form. Instead of fine hairs, he made it take the shape of feathers, until he was holding a plumage in his grasp. He gave it a harsh beat and felt the air curl underneath it, and when the smoke dispersed, he drew a gasp of a breath, quick enough to fill his lungs once more before the gas had time to reform.

Jihan did it again, this time to get a proper view of his surroundings, and his eyes grew wide when he caught sight of the pirate. The whole of his attention was placed on Jihan, which in turn meant he did not realise the newcomer on their small field of battle. The man, red-haired and tall, was moving silently across the snow, crossing over towards the pirate of smoke with a heavy staff of sorts raised in four of his six hands and ready to strike.

Iric Ried put the combined strength of his Blessing’s many arms into the swing he aimed at the pirate’s chest, and perhaps it was due to his surprise, but when the admiral struck him with his staff, the pirate’s body did not vanish from underneath its power. It hit him, fully, with a loud crack of a sound, and sent him barreling into the snow with a grunt of pain.

The smoke dispersed from around Jihan and he quickly backed out of it, heaving as he stumbled over his feet in his hurry to reach clean air. He breathed deep and greedy, drinking as much as he could of the cold air and feeling his head clear up properly once more, the numbness of suffocating retreating.

“Choi Jihan.”

Iric made his way over without taking his eyes off the pirate, who was struggling to rise, gasping for breath much like Jihan had been. The admiral offered Jihan a hand—one of far too many—to help him stand, but the captain refused it and rose on his own. Iric said nothing of it, merely returned his grip onto the staff he wielded.

“Who the fuck is he?” Jihan asked, still out of breath. In front of them, the pirate was slowly beginning to rise, but his frame fluctuated erratically, the smoke of his Blessing flaring and sinking back down over and over. 

“We call him Hinrik Reykursson,” the admiral said through gritted teeth. “He’s from the North, but he has spent enough time in my part of the world to be every bit as infamous there as he is here. He took on the name for himself after finding the Blessing of Smoke, dubbing himself its son and heir.” He clicked his tongue, his jaw locked with tension. “I didn’t know he had sided with the goddess of death.”

“She’s no goddess,” Jihan spat, having little intention to give her any more misplaced fear or fame. “She’s Sabelsdottír’s sister. Her name is Saga, not Hel.”

“Her sister—” For a brief moment, Iric’s stony composure cracked. He closed his eyes as if in a silent prayer for patience, a sentiment the captain shared far too easily. “Of course she is,” he said when he looked up once more. “Of course she has to be Sabelsdottír’s sister. Of course everything is caused by her cursed family.”

Jihan scoffed, yet was quick to swallow whatever words of agreement he’d been about to speak. He did not like agreeing with the sentiments of a sailor, no matter who that sailor was. “She doesn’t matter,” he said instead. “That freak of nature, that wolf, will be the end of her, but we need to get the clones away from it first.”

“That ought to be easy enough,” Iric said, nodding. “Reykursson’s body isn’t made of smoke. He can concentrate his Blessing to certain parts of his body and turn that part alone into vapour, but not all of him at once. If we overwhelm him—”

“He will drop his guard eventually,” Jihan finished for him. “So let’s rush the bastard.” He had finally managed to still his breathing and turned his prosthesis back to the way it should look, far more content to rely on the daggers he knew best how to wield. With his blade in hand, he spared the admiral a glance from the corner of his eye. “If you attempt anything,” he said in warning, “I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

Iric nodded once more, although it was far stiffer this time. “Likewise,” he said, and then they charged as one.

Hinrik Reykursson’s prior smugness was nowhere in sight as he turned their way, his face still contorted in pain as he clutched at the side of his chest. “Bastards,” he spat and raised his free hand, trembling as it was. “Hel’s messenger will not be made a mockery of, not by scum the likes of you!”

A whirl of smoke came bursting from the palm of his hand and shot right at Iric, who halted his advance in favour of shielding his face from the fumes. As far as physical harm, there was little the smoke could do, but it was blinding and suffocating, and it bought Reykursson the time he needed to gather his bearings and call on his Blessing to keep him safe from Jihan’s onslaught.

The strike to his chest had clearly affected him beyond the capabilities of his Blessing. This time, when Jihan lashed out at him with his blade, he did not simply stand still and allow himself to be cut through. He stepped backwards when the captain moved forwards, he dodged as many of the strikes as he could even though every slash at his arms and abdomen still passed through him as if he was made of air.

He favoured his chest and took care to leave it unscathed most of all, and it was as obvious of a tell of his weakness as could’ve been. “He can’t change his chest anymore,” Jihan called over his shoulder, although he did not know if Iric could hear him or not. “If you shattered one of his ribs or made him bleed, his Blessing can’t—”

The rest of his warning was lost when Reykursson turned his hand on the captain instead and cut him off with a burst of smoke right against his face. In his shock, Jihan gasped and drew a lungful of fumes, immediately descending into a fit of coughing, his chest feeling as if it stood aflame.

It bought only a matter of seconds for the pirate of smoke. With his focus having shifted to Jihan, the fumes around Iric cleared enough for him to resume his charge and all but throw himself at Reykursson. “G-go for his ch-chest,” the captain croaked, struggling to remain standing upright with how viciously he was coughing to clear his airways.

Iric had the obvious advantage in close combat with a man of Reykursson’s stature. Not only was he far stronger, but the pirate of smoke had only two hands to shield his chest while the admiral had six to attack him with. While Reykursson parried a strike from his staff with his bare hands, hissing at the ache it caused his palms, Iric reached underneath his arms and rammed a fist against the same spot he had hit earlier, a strike that surely shattered whatever bones still remained intact along the side of his ribcage.

A guttural sound rolled through Reykursson’s gritted teeth upon the impact, half a groan and half a scream. He had little chance to remove himself from the admiral’s hold now, so just as Jihan stood upright once more, the pirate spat a curse into Iric’s face before the whole of him seemed to detonate into an enormous pulse of black smoke.

It spread to every corner of the battlefield they had made for themselves amongst the fallen sails with the force of a storm’s winds, shrouding the area in impenetrable darkness. Surely, Reykursson had not disappeared, but in his disorientation, Iric lost his grip on him and he slipped away, hiding within the smoke that was his to command.

“Where the fuck did he go?” Jihan shouted, frantically attempting to make the smog disperse with the plumage of feathers he had fashioned not minutes prior. His eyes stung with the effort to see through the fumes, an useless effort; he could not tell the sky from the ground or left from right in the thickness of the smoke.

“I can’t see a thing!” Iric barked with equal ire, coughing between the words he spoke. “I’ve seen this before! Reykursson does this every time he thinks he will lose his battle, to mask his retreat! will escape if we fail to catch him now!”

It was his plan, both of them knew it, and perhaps he might’ve managed to slip away, but then a terrible sound tore through the air and threw the lot of them off balance, staggering in their rush to cover their ears lest they be deafened by it.

“What the—” Jihan began, but he only needed to look up to have his unfinished question answered.

With the battle they had engaged Reykursson in, the decrease in clones had given Fenrir enough room to break from the endless bursts of black smoke and resume his pursuit of Saga, who had attempted to escape the field of battle altogether. She had made a run for the dozens of ships that had cast anchor at the shore by the cliffs nearby, and she had nearly made it all the way when the beast of slaughter found her.

When Fenrir threw his head back and howled, the very earth quaked and split open, a great rift tearing the ground asunder and cutting off the path of Saga's escape. The sea rose higher than the cliffs and swept over the snow, spilling past the hull of the broken ship and onto the field of battle they had fashioned for themselves. It soaked through the sails and Jihan cursed when the cold hit his boots, but as soon as it did, he saw the opportunity it granted him.

The god’s cry had spread like an invisible pulse through the air, whipping up the wind and sending Reykursson’s Blessing’s smog whirling up into the sky to leave his escape unmasked. Without allowing his chance to pass, Jihan lunged at him with his knife in hand and ducked underneath the gush of smoke Reykursson released from his hand. Foregoing another attempt to stab him through the chest, Jihan thrust his dagger through the pirate’s foot, solidified as it had been by the icy water.

The blade sank through flesh and bone, and Reykursson screamed in pain.

“Throw him back into the water!” he barked at Iric, who complied without a moment’s doubt. With Reykursson distracted by the pain in his foot, he did not think to concentrate his Blessing on his upper body quickly enough to dodge the admiral’s charge.

Iric barreled into him and pushed him down with all six arms pinning him down into the water. In the admiral’s grip, there was little he could do but curse and shout as Jihan tore the dagger free from his foot only to bury it into his heart instead.

Smoke burst from his chest, but not in the same way it had before. It looked as if the vapour was fleeing from Reykursson’s body, rising fast into the air and vanishing there, and after the last gust of it had gone, blood seeped from him instead, gushing from around the blade of Jihan’s dagger. The captain drew it out and stood upright, breathless from the fight as he watched the pirate twitch and gurgle until he finally went still.

Jihan did not linger for long after he’d made sure Reykursson was dead. “I have to go,” he said and sheathed his dagger. He wasn’t certain why he was explaining himself to the admiral, but he did so without thinking. “I have to get back to the songbird.”

Iric called after him, but he ignored him in favour of heeding the worry brimming fiercely in his chest. He had seen through his task and cleared the way for Fenrir; now, the only thing on his mind was ensuring his beloved was safe.

At the edges of the battlefield, Haeseon had not moved from where Jihan had left him. The crows still circled him overhead, ready and waiting, but with the clones now gone and Fenrir in the throes of his rampage not far away from where he kneeled in the snow, those allied with Hel who still remained were hardly keen on coming anywhere near him. Most of the remaining pirates, be they from the West or North, seemed intent on making their way as far away from the beast of slaughter as they could go, forsaking all thoughts of battle in favour of escaping with their lives.

They needen’t have worried so for their own safety; while anyone in Fenrir’s path were trampled underneath his charge, as soon as his eyes had found Saga, he saw no one else at all. He did not care for the few brave pirates who approached him with the intent to stab at his legs, only bulled his way over them, crushing them against the ground, in his rush to catch the false god before she could escape.

It was an easy task for someone of his size. He reached the cliffs at the same time she did, and even though it was a steep fall that would surely end in injury and shattered bones, when Fenrir leaped at Saga, she looked like she would’ve rather thrown herself over the edge than suffer his rage.

Haeseon could’ve hardly blamed her for that.

One swipe of Fenrir's clawed paw sent her flying like a ragdoll across the snow. Haeseon could hear nothing over the storm's howling, but with the way Saga's form bent in an unnatural manner, he knew every bone in her left shoulder had shattered. She screamed, but the beast of slaughter showed her no mercy.

A growl rumbled past the god’s teeth like thunder and the wind stilled. A pulse went through the air, a current that drew the clouds so tightly together the light of the sky began to fade, darkness spreading across the battlefield. The pressure grew and Haeseon could hardly breathe, but then Fenrir released another howl and the tension snapped like a string.

Lightning burst from the sky like rain, striking at the snow and earth. It followed Saga as she skidded along the ground as if it was a predator of its own will, hunting after that which Fenrir had sworn to kill. The snow melted and dispersed beneath every strike and the earth grew black

The thunder awakened a terrible memory in the back of Haeseon’s mind, one of fire and pain and lightning reaching down from the skies to strike him in the neck. He recoiled from the sounds and pressed his wings against his ears, but he could not look away, not when the flashes of light cast Fenrir’s shadow across the snow over and over until he was no longer a lone god, but a battalion of rage given flesh.

The scars along his neck throbbed with heat, aching, yet he could not look away.

“Fire and blood from the depths of my sister’s realm!” the beast of slaughter cried and took off after Saga, the ground splitting open in the wake of his steps. “I have lay dormant for millennia, but I will remind the world of my presence and power!” He caught Saga with ease and crushed her against the ground with his great paw, pressing hard on her chest and lungs. “You are a liar,” he snarled as he bent over her, teeth bared and promising naught but pain, “and you will be the first to know my wrath.”

Amidst the chaos caused by the god himself and those desperate to flee, Haeseon was struck by a thought that had him lurching to his feet so fast he nearly stumbled. “Fenrir!” he cried and hurried towards the beast, foregoing flight for the rotten feathers of his left. “Fenrir, wait!”

Fenrir emitted a sound akin to frustration and did not look away from where Saga was struggling to free herself from the prison of his claws, gasping for air. She attempted to harm him with her poison, desperate in her movements as she pressed her good hand against his fur over and over and crying out in despair when it would not make him flinch. “Do not keep me from the task you have given me, little crow,” Fenrir said harshly. “It is too late now to change your mind. You told me to kill her, and that is what I will do.”

“I know,” Haeseon said, “but first, you have to ask something of her.” He stopped some ways from the two of them, frightened by the flashes of lightning still churning through the blackened clouds above. He looked down at Saga, although he wished he hadn’t; the whole of her right arm was broken and bent out of shape, and every breath she drew was a mere whistle of a sound. “Ask her what she did to the man who died in Elyas Lowe’s fortress,” he said, his throat dry as sand. “Ask her—she did something to him, I know she did. Ask her.”

She was the only one who could’ve known what had happened to Hisashi. It had to be her, and Haeseon had to know.

The god looked at him for a long moment before turning to Saga. He did not speak, only pressed harder onto her chest until she cried out, a strained scream spilling past her lips as her ribs began to crack and break. She spoke, gasping out words Haeseon could not understand, although the plea in her voice rang loud in his ears.

Only when she was done did Fenrir release the pressure he had put on her. “His bones lay buried beneath the ruins of the fortress,” he told Haeseon, snarling. “She used her Blessing to rot his skin and body, and had her men spread his bones into the ground where he’d died before she set the fortress aflame.”

A rush of cold spread through Haeseon upon his words. It clawed at him until he feared his skin might break and bleed; not for the first time, he wanted to scream, if only to release the anguish that held him so tightly within its grip. The mere thought of Hisashi’s fate had been like a plague, a disease Haeseon knew he would never be freed from, but now—

“Kill her,” he said. His voice left him as a whisper, trembling like the rest of him. “Do it, kill her.”

Fenrir did so gladly and without waiting a moment longer. He lowered his great head and sank his teeth into Saga’s chest, and closed his jaw around her body. Blood sprayed across the snow and the false god’s screams subsided, devoured by the beast of slaughter.

Haeseon turned away just as his legs gave in and he fell to his knees. His stomach turned and he retched, trembling beyond control as he heaved onto the reddened snow. Whether it was the gruesome act or the knowledge of what had happened to Hisashi, he did not know. Tears burned behind his eyes and every cell of him was aching, but beyond it all, beyond his hurt and sorrow lay a flicker of relief. A promise of mending.

Saga was dead, and the battle in the North had come to its end.

-

well damn fenrir you could’a done all that earlier you know you could’a just summoned lightning and earthquakes to get rid of the clones and jihan could’a stayed with haeseon and been all supportive and lovely and stuff >:T but no no you had to drag it out for suspense and gratuitous fight scenes instead of being useful from the start ugh so unnecessary

*side-eyes myself*

:D

bUT yay for jihan and iric working together to defeat smokey bastard sjhdsjdh they’re both so stuck up and they don’t like one another but both of them could totally imagine a cooperation deal bUT they’re too stubborn to admit it sjHSJHD pls they’re so dumb i love them 

(also when i reread this chapter to check for mistakes and i got to the very last line, i read it as “Suga was dead” and i was like wAIT A ROOTING TOOTING SECOND before realising it said saga all along :D:D::D)

bUT YEAH

THE BATTLE IS OVER

NOW IT'S JUST

THE END OF THE WORLD BECAUSE FENRIR IS DONE WITH HIS TASK WOO CAN'T WAIT TO SEE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS, HAESEON

also haeseon telling fenrir to kill saga after hearing what she did to hisashi's body.......... hECK we got some emotional shit coming up next week okay the boys need to rest now they need to finally be at peace

aND THEY NEED TO DO THE NASTY OKAY THE BOOK IS ALMOST OVER AND THERE'S BEEN NO SMUT WHAT EVEN

maybe we'll finally be able to calm our asses with next week's chapter okay FINGERS CROSSED

TOODLES


	41. ch. 40 - One Once Again

so many things are happening right now bUT THIS CHAPTER IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANY OF THEM Y'ALL DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS CHAPTER IS JUST SO

JUST

JUST SO

for music it's just Heartbeat on replay istg i'll never get tired of that song it brings me to the verge of tears every damn time jimin sings "my heart's on fire for your love" ;______;

-

The battlefield cleared quickly enough after Saga’s death.

Or, perhaps more likely, it was Fenrir’s arrival that had scared away most of the pirates, be they northern or from the West. Only Saga’s own crew had had the courage to remain after the beast of slaughter had appeared and promised to crush their captain in his maw, and now that she was dead, the lot of them were quick to flee. They had no ship to sail away on—the giant vessel remained fallen, what with the woman who had raised it into the air being nowhere in sight—so they escaped on foot.

They tried, at least; Iric Ried’s sailors apprehended as many of them as they could reach. The western sailors who managed to slip away to the shore where their ships waited were met with a grim sight. While Seunggi might’ve been immobilized and unable to join the battlefield, he had taken it upon himself to rain cannonfire over every foreign ship tied to the cliffs. Several of Talya and Freyr’s men followed those who had attempted to escape, and with no vessel to carry them back out to sea, their fates were sealed with death or captivity.

The battle was over, yet Haeseon still fought it in his mind, plagued by the horrors he had seen. He still kneeled in the snow, his legs too weak to carry his weight. He was sick to his stomach and the whole of him trembled, for once not from the cold, but from the sight of the horrid death Fenrir had given Saga.

Blood still clung to his muzzle when he turned Haeseon’s way. “My duty is done,” Fenrir said and stepped, uncaring, over the ravaged body at his feet. “I did what you asked of me, little crow.”

Shuddering, Haeseon looked up at him, lips parting to ask him what more he wanted, but the words died on his lips when a pair of hands settled on his shoulders and he was pulled back against a familiar chest. At once, he closed his eyes and sagged against his beloved, keenly welcoming his embrace.

Fenrir did not cease his approach, but his tone did change when he spoke again. “Who are you?” he asked with no small amount of disdain.

“Does it matter?” Jihan asked in return. His grip tightened around Haeseon’s frame when the god snorted and took yet another step closer. “What do you want from him?”

“To see through what he began.” Upon his words, Haeseon looked up at Fenrir and found him waiting. “Tell me true now, little crow,” he said, snarling. “Do you regret freeing me? Will you curse me for what I did?”

Exhaustion was beginning to seep into Haeseon’s bones, but he sat upright all the same. “No,” he said as bravely as he could. “You did as I asked. I don’t regret it.” Fenrir’s disbelief was palpable, so Haeseon drew the feathers of his right hand back into his skin and raised his arm towards the god, offering him his hand. The beast looked at him for a long moment before crossing over the rest of the way and lowering his great head towards him, opening his jaw.

Jihan’s grip grew tighter still and he moved as if intending to reach for the dagger at his waist, but Haeseon did not fear. “I speak no lies,” he told the beast once Fenrir had taken his hand into his maw. “This isn’t—it will haunt me for the rest of my life. The world’s balance will be disrupted and we may suffer for it, but I do not regret it.” He placed his free hand over Jihan’s. “I wanted to save those I love, and they’re safe now. It doesn’t matter how I accomplished it. They’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

The god’s eyes flashed orange, red, yellow, green, before he eventually nodded and let go of Haeseon’s arm. “Good,” he said and stepped back. “Then I will leave you now, little crow. The gods of Ásgarðr await their fate. I must deliver it to them, the rest of the world be damned.”

“He’s not a crow,” Jihan said before Haeseon could so much as part his lips. There was a defensiveness to the captain’s tone, as if he was prepared to challenge Fenrir for what he called Haeseon. “This is not who he truly is.”

“I know what he is,” the great wolf snapped, irked. “I may look like naught but a mere beast, but I hold more knowledge than you could ever possess, human. Do not presume to tell me what I do or do not know.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Haeseon said, interjecting before an argument could spark. It was the last thing he wanted, for Jihan to become at odds with a proper god, northern or otherwise. “Thank you, Fenrir.”

The beast scoffed. “Thank me only if you survive the chaos to come, little canary,” he sneered, and with that, he turned around and took off, bounding towards the mountains whence they’d come. The earth quaked beneath his steps and his howl made the dark clouds flash and rumble, but as soon as he was gone, the world grew still once more.

“Fuck,” Jihan said under his breath as he watched the god’s departure. There was a tremor to his prosthetic hand, likely a fault of the tension that plagued him, but a small part of Haeseon could not help but wonder if the captain’s own Blessing was afraid where its bearer refused to. In the end, it hardly mattered. Jihan was safe, they all were, so Haeseon allowed himself to rest and be content in his beloved’s arms.

His peace lasted only for a moment. Now that the battle was done, the rush of it—horrible as it was—began to fade. In its wake, a terrible pressure rose to his chest, one so painful Haeseon couldn’t help but whimper. His skin began to burn from within and his throat constricted around his breath until he could hardly breathe. The ache resonated throughout his body, all the way deep in his soul as it called out for its other half.

He could feel the crow’s curious presence, but it was no longer enough to quell his body’s longing—its need—to be reunited with the canary.

“Songbird,” Jihan said, his voice made loud in his worry. “Songbird, what’s wrong?”

“Freyr,” Haeseon croaked, clutching at the captain’s arms. “I need F-Freyr.” Every cell of him stood aflame. It was an unbearable ache; he cried out in pain when Jihan pulled him upright, as if his bones had gone brittle and frail in his limbs.

Cursing, the captain hoisted him into his arms and took off, running as best he could through the snow while bearing the whole of Haeseon’s weight. Every jostle hurt, but Haeseon ground his teeth together and clung tightly to his robes. “I see them,” Jihan said after only a matter of minutes, his breath heavy with exertion. “I see him, Sabelsson, but fuck—”

Haeseon did not need to ask what made the captain curse in such a horrible tone of voice. As soon as he opened his eyes and looked at Freyr, he felt the same horror rise to his chest. The boy was curled up and writhing in the snow, gasping for breath while Talya did her best to hold him still. His skin was smeared with blood, cracking around the roots of the barren feathers where they grew so large and so wide it was as if the canary was attempting to force its way out of him through his skin.

Freyr’s lips moved as if he was crying out in pain, but he had no voice. He clawed at his throat whenever his mother lost her grip on him, until the skin there was red from his nails.

Truly, he looked as if he was dying.

Haeseon all but shoved himself out of Jihan’s arms in his hurry to answer the canary’s call. He could hear it, even though it had taken Freyr’s voice from him. He could hear its outrage and its anguish, and he had to reach it.

“Haeseon,” Talya said, her voice wet with tears. “Haeseon, what is happening to him?”

He could hardly hear her over the blood rushing in his ears. Every beat of his heart echoed like a pulse in his eardrums as he crawled through the snow until he kneeled by Freyr’s side. He met the boy’s bloodshot eyes and saw their plea, and reached to take his hand in both of his own.

The change was instant, and so overwhelming Haeseon felt as if he was being split open.

The very moment their hands met, the canary burst into him like a tidal wave, forcing as much of itself into his skin as it could at once. It came to him like blood rushing back inside an open wound, so fast and carelessly it would’ve hurt had he not been so desperate for its return.

The feathers faded from Freyr’s skin and he drew a sharp breath, coughing and hacking all the while holding onto Haeseon’s hand for dear life. When he cried out, his voice was there, no matter how hoarse it had become. The more of the canary that left him, the faster his body lost its tension, overcome as he was with relief. “Take it,” he rasped and closed his eyes. “P-please.”

It was a request Haeseon was more than eager to heed. The burning ache in his body faded bit by bit, soothed by the presence of that which was his own. His ears ceased to ring and a rush of strength the likes of which he’d never felt before crashed against him with such urgency it nearly made him collapse where he sat.

For every trace of the canary that returned to Haeseon, the crow’s presence faded from within him. It left him easily, wholly uncaring of the shift while the canary was all but violent in its return. Its only disturbance came from the sheer aggression with which the canary chased it away; the crow reared back and slipped away from the smaller Blessing’s wrath, quick as it slipped from Haeseon’s body and into Freyr’s instead.

When the exchange was done, Haeseon cried out and released Freyr’s hand as if it had burned him. His voice was high and, in spite of the sharpness of it, the melodic tone of it was there once more. It was the canary’s voice. It was his once more, as it was meant to be, and it had tears springing to his eyes. He curled in on himself and pressed his hands against his own chest, whispering, “I’m sorry,” over and over as the canary settled back within his heart. He felt its distress and its anger, but also its relief and joy at finally becoming one once more.

He felt it all expand and spread within his veins, until the canary was one with him once more.

It took Jihan’s bewildered voice for him to realise he was changing without his own intent. Feathers of rose grew from every pore of his skin and his frame drew itself in and shrank until he was as small as his Blessing could be, a little canary bird swallowed by his many layers of furs and robes. In spite of his own surprise at his unintentional changing, Haeseon was content to remain as he was now. He needed it every bit as much as the canary did.

“Songbird.”

He did not startle when Jihan reached into the pile of clothes and took him in his large hand, although he did shudder at the northern cold. Without thinking much of it, he ruffled his own feathers to have them stand on edge and preserve more heat, and tucked his head against the captain’s fingers to keep warm.

Jihan chuckled and gently stroked along his feathers with his thumb before raising Haeseon towards his face. “It’s alright,” the captain murmured and pressed his lips against the top of his head. “The two of you can rest now.”

With a quiet trill of a sound, Haeseon closed his eyes in content. He basked in the presence of both his beloved and the canary, hardly stirring at all when Jihan carefully moved him to perch inside the collar of his furs. Haeseon curled up against the captain’s neck, and made no plans of moving anytime soon.

I’ll never let you go again, he thought and clung tighter to the other half of himself. I promise.

While he settled within the safety of Jihan’s robes, the captain stood upright and watched as Talya helped her son sit upright, holding onto his shoulders with trembling hands. Freyr seemed marginally better already, yet his body still trembled with the aftershocks of whatever it was the canary had done to him.

“Th-that,” he croaked and nodded Haeseon’s way, his chest heaving with his laboured breath, “is not a mere c-canary. It ca-can’t be. I’ve never—” He paused to cough, a rough fit that left him even more exhausted than before, sagging in his mother’s grip. “‘S too s-strong. No Blessing I’ve taken command of be-before has ever been so strong.”

Haeseon was too lost in his recovery to listen. He felt Jihan’s reply reverberating through his throat, but his words were distant and unintelligible. At that moment, none of it mattered; Haeseon and the canary were one once more. He was whole again. Nothing else was more important just then.

After that, it was as if he drifted in and out of consciousness even though he was awake the whole time. He only caught snippets of conversations or of what was going on around him. Jihan stood by while men of both Talya and Freyr’s crews came to help take Talya, Freyr, and Qasim back to their ship to be treated, guided with care by the vǫlva. Iric Ried came to speak briefly with Jihan before returning to his sailors to instruct them on what to do with all the pirates they had apprehended.

Haeseon’s awareness stirred when Jihan united with Daewon and Jun and the others. They looked a proper mess, the lot of them, bloodied and bruised, but upon their captain’s approach, they mustered whatever energy they still had left. While Jihan spoke with Daewon, Jun stroked the feathers along Haeseon’s chest and spoke softly to him, hushed words that went unheard in his state of bliss.

Together, they made their way back to the August. Xiao refused to change out of his Blessing’s form; he carried Chodan on his back even though his left arm was bleeding heavily both at the shoulder and by the elbow. Jun helped Lucya walk although she tried to shoo him away multiple times, stubborn in her insistance that she could walk on her own just fine. Chodan was barely conscious, drifting in and out and groaning every time either of his battered legs were jostled too roughly.

While they prepared to board the August, a pirate from Talya’s crew came running to meet them with no small amount of reluctance. He spoke not a word of their tongue, but he pointed at himself and then to Chodan, and gestured wildly between the two of them before Jihan told him, in Talya’s own language, to speak properly before he’d lose his patience. Although shocked to hear him speak their northern tongue, the pirate recovered quickly enough and introduced himself as a medic of sorts, someone who could help them care for their injured until the vǫlva could board their ship instead.

Jihan was far from pleased with the thought, every bit as much as the northern pirate, but what with their own surgeon being far from fit to tend to anyone’s wounds just then, it was all he could do to agree and accept the offered help.

All the while, Haeseon kept listening to Chodan’s cries of pain. They looking up in distress, no matter how strong the canary’s lull was, yet it was only when they returned to the August that he properly regained his senses. He did not change to his human form yet, but he did fly eagerly into Seunggi’s hands and let himself be hugged tightly against the quartermaster’s cheek.

“What happened out there, Haesae?” Seunggi asked, refusing to let go of Haeseon even when Jihan told him to be careful. “I saw that—that thing, that wolf, I saw it on the cliffs and I heard it howl, and then the sea became restless and the waves, Haesae, the waves were enormous! It nearly threw us overboard!”

At the mention of us, Haeseon turned as best he could in the quartermaster’s hands until he saw Yeonshin standing meekly by the main mast, pressed tightly against it to remain out of the way of the crewmen rushing back and forth. He was looking around, searching, likely for Jun, who had been his comfort more than anyone else since the events at the fortress.

Haeseon gave Seunggi’s finger a careful nip to loosen his hold so he could take to the air once more. He flew over to Yeonshin with only a melodic trill to tell of his approach. Startled, the surgeon was quick to raise his hands with the intention to catch Haeseon from the air as if he’d been some toy chucked his way, but he stilled when he realised who it was. “Haeseon,” he said and began to lower his hands, but Haeseon dove for them before he had the chance. He settled first on Yeonshin’s thumb, and when he raised his arm again, moved into the palm of his hand for comfort. “Why—what are you doing?”

The surgeon was fragile, still. It was obvious in the hesitant manner with which he held Haeseon’s small form, as if he expected him to shatter within his grip. To give him courage, Haeseon emitted a gentle trill of a sound and stood to nudge Yeonshin’s cheek with his head, wishing it would soothe him.

Yeonshin said nothing, but released a shaky breath and nodded, and held the little bird a bit more confidently.

Only when the crew had made ready to cast off did Haeseon change into his human form once more, much to the canary’s dismay. He dressed quickly, throwing on whatever furs he could grab from his and Jihan’s quarters before joining the captain at the helm. “We have to return to the fortress where Elyas Lowe held us,” he said. He spoke quietly so Yeonshin would not hear him where he stood by the shrouds with Jun.

“Why?” Jihan asked, frowning. “Is there anything for us left there?”

“Hisashi.” The captain stilled as soon as the name fell from Haeseon’s lips. “Before Fenrir—before Saga died, I asked her what they did with Hisashi’s body,” he said. “Fenrir turned her words for me, and she said—” He swallowed thickly, reluctant to recall the words she had spoken. “She used her Blessing to turn his body to bones. She buried—she said she had her men scatter Hisashi’s bones throughout the fortress, and then she burned it to the ground.”

Jihan was pale as a ghost by the time he was done speaking, his grip on the August’s helm so tight the wood creaked beneath the touch of his right. “We have to find him,” Haeseon said and placed his hand on top of the captain’s. “We have to.”

“We will,” Jihan said without pause. “We’ll find him, songbird.” He managed a stiff nod before turning to Daewon. “Get a message to Sabelsdottír. Tell her we’re returning to the shores where I killed Elyas Lowe. If she wants to find us, or get her damned medic back, that is where we will be.”

With their heading set, Haeseon felt some of his tension leave his form, but he stayed put where he was, unwilling to part from his beloved’s side. Seunggi sat on the rail next to them, and with every pirate who crewed the August moving about on deck—those who could still walk, that is—he did not want to retire to his quarters and rest, even when Jihan told him to.

They were safe now, he knew it, but he did not want to look away. Perhaps it had become his habit, what with the peril they had suffered ever since first encountering Saga at the top of the glaciers of Svalbard.

Haeseon would not rest, he decided. Not now, and likely not ever.

It did not take them long to reach the shores where they had fought against Elyas Lowe and his crew. When escaping from Saga, they had sailed around Iceland with no proper heading for days and circled it nearly the whole way around. In a matter of hours, when the sun had long since set for the night, a deckhand called down from the crow’s nest, and those able enough to walk made ready to go ashore.

This time, Seunggi refused to stay behind. He stubbornly—and loudly—told his brother he did not care if he had to walk on a healing leg, he would not remain on the ship for a third time while the rest of them went ashore, especially not when it was so important. In his exhaustion, Jihan was far less patient than he usually was; by the time Daewon intervened, the two brothers were a few poorly chosen words away from a full-blown fight.

The first mate had Jun and Yeonshin help him fashion a sled of sorts, one that could be pulled across the snow with relative ease. Still reluctant, Jihan petulantly asked Seunggi if he was planning to pull the sled himself, and not until Haeseon raised his voice and offered to pull it did the captain finally concede and agree to his brother joining them.

In the end, it was Daewon who drew the short straw and ended up having to drag the sled along. “It was your brilliant idea,” Jihan muttered when the first mate protested. “Now you reap the benefits.”

By the time they reached the fortress, the sun had risen once more to relieve them of the torches they had carried in the night. The sky was packed with clouds as white as snow, but the wind stood still and the air was not as cold as could be. With a tinge of ominousness, Haeseon wondered if the weather was simply being merciful, or if it the heavens had been forced to grow warmer as a cause of Fenrir’s freedom.

Beneath his robes, his Blessing’s feathers curled around his arms to keep him warm and safe, so he mustered his bravery and carried on.

The fortress had been rundown and old when Haeseon and last been there, but now, it looked a proper ruin. The fire had devastated whatever buildings had still remained around the main castle, while the fortress itself had collapsed in on itself. The wood and stone had been blackened by the flames, and the snow around it was grey with coal and debris.

“Spread out and search in the snow,” Jihan said as soon as they arrived and gestured towards the ruins. His jaw was locked with tension, his expression grim as could be. “We won’t return to the ship until we find him. All of him.”

While the others set to work at once, Haeseon lingered by Seunggi’s sled. In spite of the mild weather, he felt cold all the way to his bones in spite of the canary’s attempts to keep him warm. He knew the chill for what it was, the same eerie cold he had felt when he had come her last with Jihan. “It’s alright, Haesae,” the quartermaster said and reached over to take hold of Haeseon’s hand. “You can stay with me. No one will think badly of you if you do.”

Haeseon only pressed his lips together and shook his head, lost for words and courage.

Daewon was the first to find what they were looking for. He emerged from the ruins of some small huts and houses with a stony look on his face as he cradled what looked horrifyingly similar to a hand in his own. It was naught but bone, damaged by the fire and dirtied by coal, yet clean otherwise, as if he it had belonged to hadn’t died mere days prior.

The first mate held it out to Jihan, who took it with utmost reverence. His movements were stiff as could be, as if his despair had petrified him and turned him to stone, yet he still held the piece of what remained of Hisashi as if it was the most important thing he’d ever known. “Keep searching,” he said hoarsely and turned away from his crew to place the bones inside the crate they had brought, as well as to hide his anguish from them.

Only when several more of Hisashi’s bones had been placed in the crate did Haeseon finally muster the courage to join the others in their search. He gave Seunggi’s hand a squeeze to reassure him—and himself—before leaving his side and walking deeper into the ruins of the fortress with no idea where to even start looking. There were people searching inside the main castle and amongst the rundown huts around it, even in the small courtyard. Haeseon knew he could’ve joined any of them to make their task easier, but his gaze caught on another place, one left untouched by them so far.

The gates.

He wasn’t certain what it was that made him take the path he did. He walked towards the destroyed gate with a growing weight bearing down on every step he took. He did not know why he went just there, but it was as if the canary was showing him the way, guiding his steps until he was kneeling amidst the ruined doors. He did not know why that particular spot was important, but he sank his hands into the snow and dug all the same.

The frozen ground was stubborn, but he kept going all the same. He dug deeper even as the snow seeped into his gloves and made his hands numb, until his fingers touched something smoother and harder than the earth that concealed it.

With his breath caught in his throat, Haeseon slipped the gloves off his hands and reached back into the dirt to take hold of what he had found. He did so with utmost care, cradling it in his grip as he freed it from the ice and snow where it did not belong. “I’m sorry,” he whispered and brushed the frost and coal from it. Tears rose fast to his eyes and his chest burned and ached, but he held his emotions at bay in favour of lowering his head in a plea of forgiveness. “I’m so sorry, Hisashi.”

The swordsman’s skull was heavy in his trembling hands even though it looked so frail, as if it might’ve shattered should he drop it. Even though it might’ve weighed a tonne at least, yet Haeseon held it as gently as he knew how. It felt far too heavy for him to bear, far more important than he knew how to handle, but he held it in his hands all the same, and lowered his head before it.

Numbly, Haeseon thought of the argument he had had with Hisashi so many months ago. He could hardly remember what it had been about; all he knew was that it had not been worth the rift it had torn between the two of them, one that had never been mended and never would be. “I’m sorry,” he said again. He thought of what he had done to save Jihan and Talya and Freyr and all of their crews, and he knew the hypocrisy of his past words. He understood it now. “I’m sorry I was so blind. You were right.” He snivelled and managed a rueful smile. “At least a little bit right.”

Before his eyes, he could imagine Hisashi scoffing and rolling his eyes and grumbling out of sheer stubbornness, and the smile on his lips quivered. “But you were wrong, too,” he said and shook his head before raising it, lifting his gaze to the skull no matter how hard it was. “You said no one loves you. You were wrong.”

He thought of Jihan, who had sank to his knees and bowed before the spot where Hisashi had died. He thought of Seunggi, who had cried in silence against Haeseon’s back when he’d learned the truth, and he thought of Yeonshin, whose mind had cracked and broken upon being forced to take a knife to Hisashi’s chest. He thought of the rest of the August’s crew who mourned in silence, because they knew Hisashi would grow angry should he see them in despair.

Haeseon wiped the tears from his eyes and stood, still holding onto the skull as if it was the most precious thing in this world. “We’ll show you,” he promised and looked at where the others were still working to overturn the whole of the fortress to find Hisashi’s remains. “We’ll send you off right, because you mattered.” Within his heart, the canary sang a sorrowful tune. It echoed through every cell of him, so Haeseon cradled the swordsman’s skull against his chest. “Because you were loved,” he whispered, and hoped Hisashi could hear him.

As soon as the strength returned to his legs, Haeseon stood and made his way back towards where Seunggi was waiting. He passed Daewon on his way and the first mate rose from the pile he’d been sifting through, the tension in him escalating tenfold upon the sight of what Haeseon carried in his arms. He said nothing, but the ache in his eyes said more than enough when he met Haeseon’s gaze and nodded.

When Haeseon found Jihan in the middle of placing yet another bone inside the crate, for a moment, he lost his voice. He did not know what words to speak to make the following any easier for the captain. It was painful and heavy enough for himself, and he knew Jihan would feel it far worse than he did. He wanted to say something to make it easier, but in the end, no words would come to him but his beloved’s name.

“Jihan,” he said as gently as he knew how.

The captain turned his way, quizzical for a brief second before his eyes fell to the object in Haeseon’s arms. It was as if the air left him all at once, his frame falling to make him look frightfully small where he stood. He said nothing for a long time, only looked at the skull of who had been his crewman.

His friend.

All around them, the August’s crew gathered to watch, silent in their mourning. When Jihan finally moved, his hands trembled just as Haeseon’s had when he took the skull from his arms. The captain struggled to look at it, as if he was afraid of meeting a gaze that was no longer there, yet he held it up until he could press his brow against the skull’s. “We’ll bring you home, Junji,” he promised in a quivering whisper. “We’ll send you off the right way. I swear it.”

He nodded against the smooth bone before turning to his crew. “He doesn’t belong in the cold North,” he said, uncaring of the way his voice broke. “We’ll take him back to the East, and send him to the seas that were his home so he can find Rodel and chase our ancestors together with him.”

The August’s crew replied as one, a resounding “Aye,” rising from the lot of them. It echoed across the barren hills of snow and ice, and finally, no matter how small nor how much it had cost, Haeseon felt a semblance of peace settle back within him.

They were broken now, and it would take time and it would hurt, but eventually, they would be alright. They would heal.

-

//sobs

ughhhhhhhhhh that last scene hurt hoo boy it hurt a LOT okay like it's an unimaginable sorrow and hurt to have to do what they're doing oh god >__< but they gotta be strong, they want to be strong for hisashi and give him the sendoff he deserves, like no way would they leave him to rot in the ground of a place that has never been a home to him

HISASHI I LOVE YOU OKAY I'LL GIVE YOU A GOOD FAREWELL I'LL SEND YOU OFF PROPERLY SO YOU CAN GO TORTURE YOUR ANCESTORS OKAY and rodel will be your side-kick and y'all will have the best of times ;_________;

//sobs again but more violently

and haeseon reuniting with the canary and legit regressing into tiny birb mode to recover??? aND JIHAN KISSING THE TOP OF HIS TINY HEAD HELLO????? 911 I'M ABOUT TO PASS ON FROM SOFTNESS??????????

also there are some interesting pieces of dialogue in this chapter right here hmm very curious hmm yes interesting hmm

oKAY but in good news tho this marks the official end of the final battle! that's right the fighting is finally done they can finallY be at peace and REST AGAIN OH MY GOD IT'S BEEN SO LONG WTF istg it's been over 10 chapters since they last had proper time to rest???????? what??????

this also means there's like.... 2 chapters left of tstn .__. plus maybe an epligue but like.... yeah ._______. we're almost at the end ._____________________.

gOD i can't believe this book is reaching its end oh my god it's been such a rough journey, you know??? like damn i started writing this, what, in october last year?? it's been nine whole months, it'S LEGIT BEEN A WHOLE PREGNANCY'S LENGTH TO CREATE THIS BABY OF MINE OH MY GOD THE IRONY

and i love the north okay omg with it's mythology and natural environment bUT PLS I'M TIRED OF THE COLD I WANT MY BABIES TO BE WARM AND COMFY AGAIN OH MY GOD SOMEONE LET THEM REST FOR THREE MONTHS NOW ;__;

also where the f*ck is the smut scene okay i strictly remember myself promising one smut scene per book and jihan has legit been blueballed since chapter hecking 4 hE NEEDS HIM SOME GOOD LOVIN' OKAY I'LL BE DAMNED IF I DON'T LET HIM HAVE IT

>:T

most future plans for this page are already written in my patreon account bio, but i'll get into more deets about that in the final chapters


	42. ch. 41 - Calm Seas

Unnatural.

So long had the August’s crew gone without knowing peace, the absence of threat of harm or death was all but unnatural. There was no longer a need for every crewman to bear arms when moving about the deck in constant fear of attack. The constant tension that had plagued the ship in waiting of conflict in the middle of the night was baseless now, what with every threat they’d known in the North as good as gone.

It was peaceful, and it was unnatural.

In the wake of battle, the pirates struggled to rest, their captain more so than any of them. Jihan could not seem to settle, anxious and brooding even as he guided his ship to follow after Freyr’s, heading north to Ísafjörður once again. The northern crews had followed them to the shores where they had landed to search for Hisashi’s bones and waited for them there. When they returned, Talya had asked them to come—through the vǫlva, who had boarded the August to help treat their wounded once she’d taken care of her own—and with no heading and in dire need of rest, Jihan had complied.

Not that he did rest. On the contrary, the captain spent the first hours after casting off moving about his ship to ensure his crew were alright, in spite of looking as if he might’ve passed out at any moment. He sat with Chodan in the infirmary while the vǫlva bound his broken legs in a splint of wood and cloth, he helped Lucya with treating the many injuries Xiao had sustained. He sought out Yeonshin in the galleys and silently kept him company while he, Seunggi, and Jun prepared whatever portions they could scrape together for the recovering crew to eat. 

And of course, he did not leave Haeseon’s side when the seer smeared a pale paste over his right forearm, where Saga’s venom had spread to his skin. It was a small affliction, thankfully, but the salve burned and itched all the same. She wrapped his arm with cloth and forbade him from touching it, so he clutched tightly onto Jihan’s hand instead, to keep himself from scratching at his own skin.

All the while she worked, the vǫlva looked at him with her blind gaze, yet she did not speak. He knew she wanted to, he could feel it, but she said nothing at all. Perhaps, he mused, it was a product of the vigilance with which Jihan watched her go about her treatment; at the sight of what afflicted Haeseon, the captain’s face hardened while his touch became very gentle, as if he wished to sheild Haeseon from all the world’s aches.

The seer would find him later, Haeseon knew, so he left his own thoughts unspoken and let himself be taken care of by his beloved.

“You should rest, Jihan,” Haeseon said when they left the infirmary. The captain looked as if he could barely remain standing upright, with the skin beneath his eyes black with exhaustion and his frame swaying where he stood. He looked haggard, as one would after going so long with neither sleep nor peace. “Everyone else is sleeping or lying down. You should do the same, before you collapse.”

“Can’t,” Jihan muttered, a hint of a slur to his words. “Daewon’s still standing by the helm. I’ll take over for him, and rest when everyone else feels better.” He smiled at Haeseon, although it was far more akin to a grimace than anything else. “You get some sleep first, songbird. I’ll join you in a little while.”

“No, you won’t.” Having had enough of the captain’s stubbornness, Haeseon gave his hand a yank when they reached the quarterdeck, tugging Jihan away from the helm and towards their quarters instead. “You will join me now,” he said with as much finality as he could muster. “There are plenty of people aboard this ship who can stand by the helm in Daewon’s stead. If not any of us, then Talya’s seer can do it. I’ll ask her myself.”

The captain sighed, a sound more akin to a yawn. “Songbird—”

“I won’t hear it,” Haeseon said and threw him a warning look from over his shoulder. “I want to rest, and I can’t do that properly without you.”

For all his grouching, Jihan followed without struggle. He complained all the way, saying his crew needed rest more than he did, yet he did not resist or attempt to pull his hand out of Haeseon’s grip. He allowed himself to be guided to their bed, and merely huffed when Haeseon pushed him down onto the mattress.

“I’m not tired,” he said in a last-ditch attempt, sorry as it was. His lips were pursed into a petulant pout and the glare he pinned Haeseon under was as intimidating as a child’s.

“Yes, you are,” Haeseon said with a huff of his own. He ignored the captain’s gaze as he pulled every blanket and spread of furs over to the middle of the bed before lying down himself, stopping only for long enough to kick off his boots. “Sleep, Jihan, or I’ll make you.”

His beloved snorted at that, amused and exasperated all at once. “That sounds like a threat, songbird,” he said dryly even as he reached over to pull Haeseon against himself underneath the heavy covers. “Would you hurt your betrothed over such a trivial matter?”

“It’s not trivial,” Haeseon said, although far more softly. He cupped Jihan’s cheeks and stroked his thumbs over the dark skin beneath his eyes, uncaring of the discomfort it caused his right arm. “It’s your health, Jihan. I know you worry for the others, but you have to care for yourself as well. And,” he lightly flicked the captain’s jaw in reprimand, “don’t try to sweet talk me by bringing up our engagement. It won’t work on me.”

Jihan heaved another sigh, and Haeseon knew it was his surrender. “I know,” he said with a small smile, this one more convincing than the last. “I’m only being stubborn.”

“You are,” Haeseon agreed, but he smiled as well. “Close your eyes now. I’ll wake you when we reach the shores outside Ísafjörður.”

With an incoherent mumble, the captain shifted until his nose was pressed against Haeseon’s throat, sparking a shudder at the touch of cold. With his own worry dissipating, Haeseon placed a kiss onto the top of Jihan’s head and stayed there, crooning a quiet tune to lull his beloved to sleep. It did not take long; in a matter of minutes, Jihan’s breathing became even and his grip on Haeseon slackened, finally finding peace once more.

Haeseon waited until he was sleeping deeply enough before sitting up in their bed. He loosened the captain’s robes and reached inside them to undo the straps that bound his prosthesis, coaxing them apart as carefully as he knew how. Jihan stirred, but he did not wake, not when Haeseon lifted the artificial limb from his shoulder nor when he lay back down and pulled his beloved back against his chest.

It was unnatural to fall asleep so easily, but it was an oddity Haeseon welcomed with open arms.

The sun was still up by the time he woke, yet it was quiet as night, with no sound but the calm sea to disturb the silence. He couldn’t have slept for long—the sun only stayed in the sky for a handful of hours in the North—but he felt refreshed all the same, far lighter than he had before. Jihan, on the other hand, remained fast asleep with his face buried against the side of Haeseon’s abdomen, as was his habit, with no signs of wanting to wake anytime soon.

Good, Haeseon thought as he slipped out of his beloved’s embrace, although not before leaving a kiss on his cheek. He should sleep for a week at least. He shuddered when he sat up and threw a glance at the doors before scooping up one of the furs into his arms and rising. He nearly tripped over the prosthetic arm on his way out, having been too tired to put it anywhere else than right beside their bed, but saved himself with a string of hushed, incoherent noises.

The deck was every bit as deserted as it sounded, with not a man in sight, save for Seunggi, who sat on the rail by the helm with one hand resting lazily on top of the wheel. He seemed bored out of his mind, but upon the sight of Haeseon, he perked up at once, a brilliant smile rising to his lips. “Haesae,” he chirped, albeit quietly so as to not disturb the peace. “Did you sleep well?”

Haeseon closed the doors before replying, wanting to ensure the captain would not wake. “Yes,” he said when he’d made his way over. “How long was I asleep?”

“Not too long,” Seunggi said and patted the rail next to him. He squealed with delight when Haeseon settled next to him and threw the furs over both their shoulders, pulling them tight until they were curled up right next to one another. “Is Jihan still sleeping?”

“Yes,” Haeseon said again, sighing. “I don’t know how he was managing to stand upright earlier. He hasn’t slept properly for days, ever since…” He lost his words for a moment when he thought about his own words; he realised the last proper sleep his beloved had had was likely before the night before their argument about his ear. After that, Haeseon hadn’t slept well, and if he hadn’t, Jihan had surely been far worse off. “Ever since we fought about my ear,” he said when Seunggi nudged him to make him continue. “I don’t think he’s slept right since then.”

The quartermaster pursed his lips in concern. “Are the two of you alright?” he asked. “Did you resolve it, or are you still…” He left the question unspoken, as if he was worried the words alone would hurt Haeseon to hear. “Are things good between you again?”

“Everything’s alright,” Haeseon said, smiling. It still gave him relief to be able to say it and have it be true. He and Jihan had spoken of it and come to terms with it, so now, rather than cause him pain, the thought of their feud served as nothing more than a reminder of how fiercely he loved and was loved in return. “We’ve moved past it,” he said. “We talked, and we’re alright now. In fact,” his smile grew shy and he raised his shoulders towards his ears without realising it, “he asked me to marry him.”

“He what?” Foregoing all thoughts of being quiet, Seunggi threw the furs off his shoulders and nearly fell over in his hurry to turn Haeseon’s way, his exclamation echoing across the still waves. “He asked you to—when did he—why didn’t you tell me?”

“You probably won’t believe me when I say it slipped my mind,” Haeseon said sheepishly and widened his eyes into a look of pleading. “It happened just before Freyr escaped from the brig, and with Saga chasing after us and Talya slipping away in the night, I—” He rolled his shoulders in a manner that was meant to be nonchalant, but he couldn’t keep the smile from his lips. “I didn’t forget, but it wasn’t the proper time to be… happy.”

“I can’t believe this.” Contrary to his words, Seunggi was all but beaming when he settled down on the rail once more and wrapped his arms tightly around Haeseon. “You’re marrying my brother. You’re marrying him, I don’t—how will you do it? Can you even get married?” The smile fell from his lips and was replaced with a thoughtful frown. “Men don’t marry men where we’re from.”

Haeseon chuckled and patted the arm Seunggi had slung around his chest. “Jihan said the rules of our homeland don’t matter to us,” he said. “He said we’re pirates of the sea, so if we want to, we can marry.”

The quartermaster’s grin returned in full force, running from ear to ear. “He would say that,” he chortled, pressing his cheek against Haeseon’s. “My little Haesae is getting married. Before me. Not that I’ve ever considered it a possibility, but—I can’t believe this.” He heaved an over-exaggerated sigh. “Kyujang would be envious if he knew.”

A note of wistfulness crept into his tone upon the mere mention of the sailing master, even though his smile did not falter. Still, Haeseon pulled him closer at once and adjusted the furs to make sure Seunggi would not be cold. “We can go back to the East now,” he said gently.

“Yes.” The quartermaster’s voice was sullen now, his smile twitching at the corners. “But I still won’t be able to see Kyujang, will I?” he asked. “Even if we return, who knows when he’ll be done with his training. It might still be months or even a whole year.” He sighed. “I feel so incomplete without him,” he mumbled. “Like there’s a hole in my heart. I swear, I can feel the cold wind blow through it at times, and he’s been away for so long.”

Haeseon thought of what Jihan had told him of his brother’s Blessing and pressed his lips against the top of Seunggi’s head, wishing he could’ve alleviated his longing somehow, even though it lay far beyond the reaches of his control. “That’s true,” he said, “but you’ll be able to send him more letters once we return to Shanghai. And see if he has sent you any. I’m sure he has. He misses you like mad, I know it.”

For a moment, he considered asking the quartermaster about his Blessing. He wondered if it would be easier for him if he could speak of it freely, but ultimately, he thought it better not to bring it up. He, if anyone, knew how difficult it was to share that which had been kept secret for so long, and he’d wait for as long as Seunggi would need to confide in him. “He must be worried,” Haeseon murmured against his golden hair.

The quartermaster emitted an incoherent sound in lieu of answering. They sat in silence for a moment after that, reveling in the other’s presence and warmth, before Seunggi heaved another sigh, this one far lighter. “He’ll hate us when he hears what has happened here,” he said. “Knowing we’ve seen a true god…” He peered up at Haeseon with a smile that was almost shy, as if he was uncertain if it was a proper jest to make. “He won’t forgive us for doing it without him.”

“He will,” Haeseon said with a giggle, “but he’ll sulk for days first. Kyujang has more curiosity for the world than the rest of us combined, and knowing we saw something that shouldn’t even be real…” He shook his head, grinning. “It’ll hit him hard, for sure.”

Seunggi’s frame shook against his side with his chortles. “It feels odd to laugh like this,” he said when he sobered up. He turned his head this way and that, gazing out over the ocean as if expecting to see some forgotten enemy. “It’s odd to be at peace once again.”

“Peace.” Haeseon glanced past the foresails of the August and at Freyr’s ship, sailing some paces ahead of them. “I wonder how peaceful it will be once we land,” he said ruefully. “The relationship between our crew and theirs is strained thin now. Jihan is still angry, I know it, with both Talya and Freyr and all their men.”

“As should you be, you know,” Seunggi said, but when Haeseon looked at him, he merely shrugged, appearing thoughtful rather than cross. “My brother is not a vindictive person. Or, well,” he amended sheepishly, “he is, but not in the way people would think. He only despises those who hurt any of us directly and with purpose. He’s angry with Sabelsdottír, yes, and he doesn’t like Sabelsson in the slightest, but it’s not too late.”

Haeseon grimaced at that. “I think he’s a little bit angry with me as well,” he said quietly. “I was the one who convinced him we should follow after Talya when she slipped away on Freyr’s ship. He didn’t want to, but I pleaded with him to go.” A chill went through him upon the recollection of seeing Chodan unconscious in the infirmary with his legs bound and unmoving. “Everything that happened in the battle against Saga was—”

“If you tell me it was your fault, Haesae, I won’t hesitate to smack you right across your pretty face,” Seunggi interrupted and raised a hand in demonstration. It was a hollow threat, Haeseon knew, and true enough, when he parted his lips to protest, the quartermaster only pinched his cheek, tugging at it to keep him from speaking. “You’re always so quick to take the blame,” he said, huffing. “Tell me, every injury we’ve suffered during any of our other battles, are they Jihan’s fault?”

“No,” Haeseon said at once, frowning as best he could in his friend’s grip. “Of course not.”

“Why not?” Seunggi asked. “It’s by my brother’s command that we engage in those battles. He could tell us to sail the other way, but he doesn’t. We fight and we get hurt. Is it his fault?”

Haeseon pursed his lips, knowing just what the quartermaster was attempting to say. “No,” he said again, “but—”

“No buts, Haesae.” Seunggi squeezed his cheek one last time before letting go and patting the reddened skin. “You have to hold yourself to the same standards as you do the rest of us,” he said and wrapped his arms back around Haeseon. “You’re allowed to choose the battles you wish to fight. Not everyone will be happy with it, but you have that right, just as the rest of us do. Jihan may not have wanted it, but I know he understands why you did.”

“Gi—”

“He’s not angry with you.”

The finality in his voice had Haeseon sighing, not out of exasperation, but in relief, however small it was. “You really think so?” he asked in a whisper.

“I know so,” Seunggi said with a firm nod. “He’s not angry. The only thing he is,” he grinned and waggled his brow, “is your betrothed.”

A rush of warmth rose to Haeseon’s cheeks and he shoved the quartermaster away, made shy at once. “Don’t say it like that!” he whined, far louder than intended. His voice echoed over the waves and only added to his embarrassment. “You’re teasing me.”

Seunggi scoffed at that. “Of course I am,” he said, as if it was a thing to be expected. “Did you think I wasn’t going to take advantage of your shyness every chance I can get?”

“No,” Haeseon huffed with no small amount of petulance. “But a man can dream, no?”

When the quartermaster grinned, it was impossible to not do the same, so they sat on the rail by the helm like a couple of smiling fools until the sun finally began to set. Members of the crew came and went, emerging from the brig to stretch their aching limbs before disappearing back below again.

Yeonshin came to join them when the sun had just disappeared beyond the horizon. He had woken and grown anxious with naught but sleeping bodies around him, so he climbed onto deck in search of company. He was nervous in his approach, as if he still worried they would turn him away, but Seunggi pulled him down to sit between the two of them, squeezing him in under the warm furs and holding him tight.

It was a cold night, but the sky was full of stars and the moon was bright and round, and Haeseon felt naught but relief.

“He’d better apologise once we land,” Seunggi said suddenly, hours into the night. He spoke quietly so as to not wake the surgeon, who had fallen asleep with his head resting on Haeseon’s shoulder. “Sabelsson, I mean. He behaved like a proper arse towards you until the very last moment, so should apologise. I’ll hate him forever if he doesn’t.”

Haeseon huffed out a quiet chuckle at his childish tone of voice. He had already told the quartermaster of how Freyr had helped them in the battle against Saga, but Seunggi was stubborn, just like his brother, and refused to acknowledge it as an act of redemption. “Will you forgive him if he apologises?” he asked and had to muffle his giggles when his friend looked at him with great conflict. “I thought as much.”

“Well,” Seunggi said dryly, “I’ll decide that once he has thrown himself at your feet and begged you to spare his sorry soul.”

It was not an image Haeseon could so easily conjure, so he merely shook his head and smiled, wholly endeared by his friend’s eagerness to defend his honour. He wondered for a moment what he himself would say should Freyr actually apologise and what would happen should he not, but in the end, he pushed the thoughts out of his mind and decided the most important thing was that the three crews could find a middle ground once more, a place of agreement to keep the peace between them intact.

It’ll be fine, he thought a little while later, when he returned to Jihan’s embrace in their bed. The captain was still fast asleep, but even so, he pulled Haeseon against his chest as soon as he was back within reach, as if it was an instinctual thing to want him so close. Smiling, Haeseon settled against him and closed his eyes, and slept peacefully once more. It’s all over now.

-

True to his words, Haeseon did not let Jihan out of their bed until they reached the fjord outside Ísafjörður. Even though the captain had woken a few hours prior, Haeseon had tugged him back onto the mattress every time he’d attempted to rise from it. Jihan had rolled his eyes and complained, but all it took was for Haeseon to bat his eyes and pout up at him to make him surrender and lay back down.

They did not sleep after that, only lay together in silence and drew strength from each other’s presence. It had been so long since they had been like this, every moment that passed made Haeseon feel stronger. Even the pain in his right arm was not as prominent, ushered to the far back of his mind by the sensation of Jihan’s soothing touch along his neck and the hushed words he whispered to him.

He listened with rapt attention when Haeseon told him of how he had sought out Fenrir and what he had done to find him, and kissed him breathless when he was done. “I said it already,” Jihan murmured against his lips, “but you’re so strong, songbird, stronger than anyone I’ve ever known.”

Haeseon might’ve cried then, if not for the amusement he felt when the canary’s presence flared in his chest, petulant with ire upon hearing him be praised for what he had accomplished in its absence. It left Haeseon with a feeling of joy all the same, so he only smiled and guided Jihan’s hand to his chest so he could feel his heart before pulling him back for another kiss.

When they finally reached the docks of Ísafjörður, the entire town was bustling with life. The folk who had gone into hiding in fear of an attack from Saga’s wrath were in the middle of settling back into their homes, all the while directing their guests to spaces where they could receive food and drink, or further treatment for their wounds should they need it. Cloth for bandages and flagons of what was either mead or water were carried here and there; even the children were helping, bearing bowls of steaming soup for those too tired to work.

Much to Haeseon’s surprise, Freyr was the one who had lingered to wait for their arrival at the harbour. The others were helping the injured ashore, with Talya having gone with her husband to get him settled somewhere quiet. The vǫlva hadn’t said much about Qasim’s health, but from what Haeseon had seen amidst the battle, the damage to his arm had been devastating. It must’ve been terrible, both for Qasim himself and for Talya who had to watch him suffer through it, thus he wasn’t upset by their absence.

Jihan did not share his understanding. “What are you doing here, Sabelsson?” he asked as soon as they stepped onto the docks. He made no effort to hide the distrust in his voice, nor did he keep the scowl from his face when Freyr came up to greet them. “What do you want?”

The boy did not immediately speak, his lips parting and closing around nothing but his breath. He wrung his hands in nervousness and his gaze flickered from Jihan to Haeseon and then down, as if he did not quite dare look at any one of them. It was a drastic change from his usual demeanor; gone was the arrogance and carelessness with which he had treated the lot of them before. In their wake, Freyr was all but meek, his brows pinched and eyes downcast as he searched for the proper words to speak.

Once again, Haeseon was reminded of just how young he truly was.

“I want—I would ask for your forgiveness,” he said at last. He spoke quietly, as if he was secretly hoping no one would hear him properly. “Both for my own behaviour and on behalf of my crew. We—I was rude and unfair towards you when you did not deserve it, and I allowed my own immaturity to cause tension between my family and yours.”

It seemed to cost him a lot of effort to pry his hands apart so he could bow properly, his frame stiff as stone even as he did. “I know it is a lot to ask, but I hope you would at least spare my mother and father any ill will because of my actions,” he said with a tad more strength to his voice. “I understand if you can’t forgive me, but please don’t blame anyone else for what I did. Talya—my mother cares for you very much, and I wouldn’t want my own mistakes to tear a rift between you.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Jihan asked, a brow arched in challenge. “I would’ve thought that was precisely what you wanted.”

“Jihan,” Haeseon said and placed a calming hand on the captain’s arm. “Easy.”

“It was, at first,” Freyr said with a grimace, as if it pained him to admit it. “But it was wrong of me. I know it. It was never my place to do so, no matter what insecurities I had. I shouldn’t have done what I did, any of it, and I ask your forgiveness for it.”

When he was done speaking, the silence that followed was long and heavy as stone. Jihan only looked at Freyr with the usual tightness to his jaw, while the boy remained bowing, hands clenched tightly at his sides. Behind Jihan, Seunggi was frowning, but there was no anger to it, nor ire; rather, he looked reluctant, as if he wasn’t quite ready to do that which he himself had said he would.

For all the tension in the air, Haeseon only smiled and waited, knowing his beloved, albeit stubborn, was fair before anything else.

Eventually, Jihan broke the silence with an outdrawn sigh. “I’ll be honest with you, Sabelsson,” he said, still with some ire clinging to his tone. “I don’t like you. You’ve given me no reason to like you and so I don’t. But,” some of the tension slipped from his frame, although he let go of it reluctantly, “I recognise the sincerity of your apology. I believe you’re honest in your words now, and I forgive you.”

Freyr did not immediately look up, even as he stood upright once more. “Thank you,” he said, speaking carefully as if he was worried he’d accidentally undo what he had just accomplished. “Truly, I appreciate—”

“Before you say anything more,” Jihan interrupted, and while he did not speak nearly as harshly as before, the boy went silent at once, pressing his lips tightly together. “I appreciate your apology, but it is not me, out of all people, you should be addressing right now.”

Freyr winced, his eyes flickering to Haeseon before he lowered them again. “I know,” he mumbled. He looked far more guilty when he turned Haeseon’s way, and if he had struggled with his words before, it was nothing compared to now. There was no reluctance to it, nothing to suggest he did not want to speak; he was simply nervous, as anyone was when faced with their own mistakes.

It was an easy choice for Haeseon to make.

“I’m not—you—” Freyr said, floundering for what to say. “Haeseon, I—”

“You don’t have to apologise.” Haeseon did not have to look to know both Seunggi and Jun were rolling their eyes, and next to him, Jihan sighed and shook his head, but he only returned Freyr’s dumbfounded expression with a smile. “I’ve already forgiven you,” he said gave the captain’s arm a light smack in reprimand when he snorted. “I know the truth now, and you helped me when I needed it most. If anything, I should ask for your forgiveness, for accusing you of things you were innocent for.”

Freyr gaped at him, once again struggling for what to say, before shaking his head in disbelief. “You don’t have to do that,” he said, sounding all but distressed. “Please don’t do that.”

A giggle spilled from Haeseon’s lips, the boy’s demeanour reminding him of a flustered child. “If you still feel guilty, will you promise me one thing instead?” he asked and reached out to take hold of Freyr’s arm. He pulled him closer so he could speak without the others hearing, a secret between the two of them. “Will you speak with Talya?” he asked in a whisper. “Properly. I think if the two of you were only honest with one another, things could become better for you. Both of you.”

Fryer’s conflict was clear as day. He hesitated, lips pressed tightly together, but eventually, he nodded all the same. “I promise,” he said, still not quite daring to meet Haeseon’s eyes.

“Good.”

“And I am sorry.” The boy met his eyes, if only for a moment. “Truly,” he said.

Haeseon smiled and let go of his arm in favour of giving it a light pat. “I know,” he said gently. “Thank you, Freyr.”

The corners of the boy’s lips twitched up into the makings of a smile, shy more than anything. He looked like he would’ve liked to say something more, but a new voice piped up from behind him before he had the chance to speak.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Freyr jerked in surprise and turned sharply to face his mother, who had made her way onto the docks without him realising. He grew flustered and stuttered some incoherent words that made Talya grin, wide and toothy. “Please do not tell me you were attempting to woo the little canary right before the eyes of his fox,” she said slyly and threw an amused look Haeseon’s way. “I might have to smack you for it.”

Her cheery words were a relief to Haeseon, a reassurance of her health before anything else. The Northern Cardinal looked well, if not a little weakened; she was leaning some of her weight against a wooden cane clutched tightly in her left hand, but there was no limp to her steps nor sign of injury aside from the bandages that peeked out from her sleeve.

“Attempting to woo—no,” Freyr said quickly with a nervous look Jihan’s way, as if he worried he would take the jest to heart. “That’s not at all what I was doing!”

Talya’s smile grew wider still and she reached up to tousle her son’s hair. “I know,” she said before turning to Jihan. “Did he apologise properly?”

The captain arched a brow at that. “He did,” he said slowly, looking between mother and son. “Did you tell him to?”

“No,” Talya said. “He did ask for my advice, but the will to do it was his own. He realised his faults on his own, as a proper man should. As his mother, I suppose I should both be proud of him, and follow his example myself.” She tightened her grip on the cane and bowed low before Jihan. “I’m sorry for the pain my selfishness caused you and your crew,” she said firmly. “I asked for too much when I called you to the North, and I am eternally grateful for everything you’ve done to help me. I know you must’ve wanted to leave ten times over and I can’t blame you for it, and I, along with my family and my crew, and half the north, owe you our lives.”

The tension was back in Jihan’s frame, but it was not one of anger. “I don’t want your lives,” he said a bit louder than intended, a telltale sign of his discomfort at being addressed in such a manner.

Talya stood upright, smiling. “I know,” she said, “but they are the most precious things I have to offer to show my gratitude.” She bowed again, deeper than before. “Thank you, Choi Jihan. Thank you for saving us.”

“I wasn’t the one who saved you,” the captain replied and looked at Haeseon as if he wanted him to be on the receiving end of the Northern Cardinal’s gratitude instead of him.

“I know,” Talya said again and looked at Haeseon, who smiled in return, albeit with some shyness. “It is merely a gesture of ceremony, from captain to captain, Cardinal to Cardinal. Even if you were not the third of Óðinn’s crows, you still gave the command to come to our aid when we needed it.”

While Jihan rolled his eyes, huffing, Haeseon flushed upon being spoken of as one of godly nature. He took hold of the captain’s arm and pressed his brow against his shoulder, groaning silently to himself; surely, Talya’s enthusiasm for speaking of Haeseon’s endeavors would only grow worse from now on.

“I would ask you to stay in the North for a little while longer,” she said, foregoing her teasing in favour of extending her invitation to Jihan. “I know you must be tired of it already and eager to sail home, and if you want to leave now, I’ll supply your ship for the journey. If you would stay, however, I can offer you room to rest and time for your injured to heal.” She threw a glance over her shoulder. “The townsfolk would be overjoyed to host you again, and to invite you to our ceremony of worship for the gods in a few days.”

Jihan looked at his own crew, his jaw moving in his hesitation. Haeseon knew he wasn’t as willing to forgive Talya as he was Freyr; even though she hadn’t caused Hisashi’s death or any of the injuries the August’s crew had sustained, she was the closest thing to a scapegoat he had. It was an unfair accusation and the captain knew it as well, but the tension came to him all the same.

He was hardly subtle about it, but Talya only smiled. “I won’t be offended should you choose to leave,” she said. “With everything that has happened, I understand it. I only hope we may still be friendly, and,” she looked at Haeseon again and quirked a teasing brow, “I hope you’ll invite me to the wedding when the time comes.”

“Talya,” Haeseon said, his voice bordering on a whine. He hadn’t told her of their engagement and knew she was likely only jesting in the same manner she’d done plenty of times before, but it made him shy all the same. Beside him, Jihan snorted, and when Haeseon peered up at him, there was a smile on his lips, small and stiff, but a smile all the same.

“Alright,” he said and nodded. “We will stay here until our injured have healed enough for the journey home.”

The Northern Cardinal beamed, bouncing where she stood as if she would’ve jumped for joy had she not been so weak. “Wonderful!” she exclaimed and nearly stumbled over her own feet in her hurry to hook one arm around Freyr’s while the other reached for Haeseon, her cane lying forgotten on the docks. “Come, come. I’ll show you where you can rest.”

As he was pulled away—used to support Talya, more accurately—Haeseon threw a glance over his shoulder and at Jihan, whose frame slumped when he sighed in exasperation. Behind him, Seunggi met Haeseon’s eyes and shrugged his shoulders, a reassuring smile rising to his lips. It’ll be alright, he imagined the quartermaster saying, eventually.

Haeseon hoped so, smiling to himself when he turned back to Talya. “I’m glad you’re not hurt too badly,” he said. On her left, Freyr was every bit as tense as he had been prior, although he made for a comical sight what with how he had to lean down to allow his mother’s arm to reach around his neck. “You as well, Freyr.”

“So am I, sweet Haeseon,” the Northern Cardinal said and tightened her grip on him, pulling him more firmly against her side in a one-armed embrace. “There is a lot I want to talk to you about still, but you need your rest now. We all do, and we have all the time in the world.”

Haeseon nodded, his heart light with content. The canary was no longer angry and there was no threat bearing down on his shoulders to make him worry. Even the air seemed less cold than it had, and even though he knew it could’ve been a cause of the imbalance Fenrir had promised his world, for now, he did not care. Instead, he chose to take comfort in the truth of Talya’s words.

They had all the time in the world.

-

//throws confetti

JIHAN FINALLY GOT SOME SLEEP AYYYYYYYYYY BRING OUT THE CAKE IT'S CELEBRATION TIME WOOOOO

for real tho the poor man hasn't been sleeping right for over a week and he's been all captainy and "i have to take responsibility for everyone so i can't look away for even a second" uGH I'M SO HAPPY HE CAN FINALLY GET SOME REST :((

alsO as usual seunggi is the bestest friend and the most precious boy okay he needs to be reunited with kyujang rEAL fast

(lowkey dreading that moment because i know i'm gonna be crying my eyes out when that happens uH)

lmao @ the canary for getting all sulky and offended when jihan marvels at what haeseon did while bearing the crow :D:D::D a petty li'l bird, it is~~

and awww look at freyr all nervous and worried about being rude now that he's realised what a twat he was uwu what a whole baby he's become uwu also jihan is just, ugh, i love him so much, okay? like he really doesn't tolerate any bullshit and he's not shy about saying things straight. yeh, freyr apologised and jihan recognises that and forgives him, but that doesn't mean he likes the kid any more than he did the day before. sure, he might respect him a bit more, but until freyr gives him a reason to be "friendly" with him, he ain't gonna be

and ofc haeseon is still haeseon, sweet sweet haeseon who just wants everyone to be happy ;u; he already let go of his resentment towards freyr, so he didn't feel like an apology was needed anymore. ofc he still appreciated that freyr DID apologise, but still uwu

hhhh and then you got the rest of the crew being all "well it's not like we should've expected anything else from haeseon" JSHJHDS JIHAN SNORTING AT HAESEON WHEN HE SAID THERE'S NO NEED FOR AN APOLOGY IS A WHOLE MOOD

aNYWAYS

NEXT WEEK IS GONNA BE THE LAST OFFICIAL CHAPTER, AND THEN THERE'S THE EPILOGUE LEFT

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S ALMOST OVER

MY BABY

watch me burst into tears at the end of this ;__________;


	43. ch. 42 - A Ceremony and a Farewell

i'm LATE because holy shet this chapter got to almost 10k words because i dON'T WAIT IT TO END UGH I CAN'T BELIEVE WE'RE AT THE FINAL CHAPTER I WANT TO CRY

i did cry like twice while writing this chapter even though there's nothing inherently sad in it

i'm just

overwhelmed and emotional ;______;

once again i just played heartbeat on repeat throughout writing this all, and almost cried every time jimin sang "my heart's on fire for your love" because that just ;____________; hits me where it hURTS

jshsdjh also there are so many varying emotions throughout this chapter i have no music to recommend that could encompass it all unless i put down like a dozen markers for when to play what track sO MY APOLOGIES

ON WITH THE SOBFEST THAT IS THE FINAL CHAPTER

-

Haeseon woke in darkness, something he had grown used to over the past days. It was already morning, he knew it, but the sun would not rise for hours still, as was common during the northern winter. Outside the windows of the inn where they stayed, he could see it still looked black as night, with a quietness to match. Jihan was deep asleep behind him in their bed, so Haeseon remained where he was, as he had made a habit of doing so early in the morning.

Four days had passed since Jihan had agreed to remain in the town of Ísafjörður in waiting for his crew to recover. While most of them had received only superficial wounds, Chodan was the one who required the most care to nurse his legs even though he was like to never have the use of them again. The gunner had still drifted in and out of consciousness the night before, thus Haeseon knew they would likely stay at least another few days before casting off.

Not that they would’ve left earlier even if Chodan had had his health back so fast. Talya had spoken to them at length about the ceremony they were to hold on the sixth day, a rite of sorts for the gods in the North. She spoke of it with all the excitement of a child awaiting her gifts, and no matter how reluctant Jihan was to admit it, her exhilaration was contagious.

“I’m curious,” he said when Haeseon asked him what he thought of attending such a ceremony. “Their gods are real, we’ve seen that with our own eyes. Witnessing a ritual of prayer for true gods is intriguing.”

No one disagreed with him, least of all Seunggi. After Freyr had apologised to Haeseon, the quartermaster had become far less suspicious around the northerners, returning to how he had been when they’d first come to the North. He was not so shy around Talya anymore, but he still marveled over every new thing she could show him, whether it be the tools they would use in the ceremony, or the large stone that stood at an altar some paces outside of the town, engraved with foreign symbols.

Seunggi’s health had improved marginally since coming ashore. Only a matter of weeks had passed since his leg had broken, but after the vǫlva bound the limb and drew odd markings across it, the quartermaster swore it no longer ached when he stood upright or took a few steps. Jihan was loathe to let him walk around either way, doubtful of healing done through spells or magic or whatever it was the seer had done.

Haeseon shared his concern, or at least he would’ve, if the rest of those injured in the battle against Saga hadn’t recovered so quickly. For every passing sunrise, more and more of Talya’s northerners left their beds in spite of the injuries they had suffered, claiming their strength had returned and they could no longer lay about and rest.

It made him wonder just how much of the gods’ powers the vǫlva could draw upon, if any at all. It couldn’t have been a mere feat of crushing the right berries and herbs together into a healing salve: even Qasim, who had looked to be on the brink of death when Haeseon had arrived at the battlefield with Fenrir, left his and Talya’s room at the tavern on the morning of the third day, if only to descend the stairs in search of hot water for a bath.

Haeseon’s surprise grew tenfold when the helmsman joined them for supper that night. He appeared wholly unharmed, as if the injury he had sustained to his right arm in the battle against Saga had never happened. He swayed a bit when he walked, but greeted them all with his usual snark as he took his seat between his wife and son.

Truly, he seemed fully recovered, until Talya, with a gentle smile on her lips, reached out to take his right hand in hers halfway through their second course. Her fingers sank right through his skin and the whole of his arm flickered in and out of shape, until Qasim heaved an agitated sigh and allowed the illusion he had made for himself to dissolve.

Haeseon’s heart sank in his chest at the sight. Not only did the helmsman look haggard and weak, with his cheeks more hollow than before and dark circles beneath his eyes, but the right sleeve of his robes hung loosely from the shoulder with nothing to keep warm.

Saga’s poison had been too strong and spread too far, and Qasim had lost his arm for it.

“Was this necessary?” he asked stiffly of Talya, who moved her hand to his shoulder instead, rubbing carefully at where his arm had been severed. Qasim’s gaze flickered from Freyr and over to where Haeseon and Jihan were seated, his exasperation growing when he realised they had seen. “Did they have to know?”

“I don’t want you to hide,” Talya said with all the world’s love in her voice. There was no pity in her gaze, only affection and the promise of reassurance. By his other side, Freyr nodded in agreement to his mother’s words, although he did not touch his father in the same manner. “You’re no weaker now than you were before. You should know that, and so should the rest of the world.”

Qasim only clicked his tongue, hardly appeased by her words.

Although he was uncertain whether or not the helmsman wanted his condolences, Haeseon leaned forward in his seat to address him all the same. “I’m sorry, Qasim,” he said, speaking carefully so as to not upset the man’s fragile mood. There was more, more he felt he needed to tell the helmsman, but for all his efforts, none of the words would come to his tongue.

In his stead, much to his surprise, Jihan raised his voice. “If you want a prosthesis to mask your loss rather than your illusions,” he said, “I know of a decent armourer on the southern coast of the Empire of Ming. It won’t move like mine does, but it’ll look enough like an arm.”

Qasim scoffed at that, as if it was a ridiculous thought, but for all the arrogance to his voice, his frame lost much of its tension. “I’ll do without, thank you,” he said with a skewed smile. “One antagonistic arse with a bum arm is far more than the world needs.”

In spite of his mocking tone, Jihan only snorted and said nothing more of it.

Nothing more was needed.

Qasim did not leave his restbed much after that, but whenever he joined them for breakfast or supper in the tavern’s dining room, he went without his illusions, and seemed happier for it.

Contrary to the helmsman, however, Freyr became a nervous wreck whenever he was in the presence of anyone from the August’s crew. He shied away from them as soon as he realised they were nearby and avoided meeting their eyes; even though he would laugh along with Talya or the people in his own crew, as soon as he noticed they were not alone, he would clamp up and not speak another word loudly enough to be heard.

Talya cooed over him as if he was a shy child of five, which only added to his obvious nervousness. “He worries,” she told Haeseon one morning, after the boy had spared him an all but pained look before hurrying out of his way before he could say so much as a peep. “He knows he behaviour played part in forming the distrust between our crews, so now he worries so much about repeating his own mistakes that he doesn’t dare speak to you at all.”

While it was true the relations between the August’s crew and the northerners were strained and worn thin, it was far less severe now that the constant threat of battle was gone. Neither side seemed fond of the other—the northerners still looked at the lot of them with some small amount of distrust while those of the August’s crew particularly Jun, had no patience for their lingering looks—they were no longer hostile towards one another.

When Haeseon made his point to Talya and said there was no need for Freyr to be so tense, she only smiled and brushed away his consideration. “Let him atone in his own way, sweet Haeseon,” she said. “He will find his courage again, but only if we let him look for it on his own.”

While neither Seunggi nor Jihan minded the boy’s hesitance much, Haeseon would’ve liked to speak with him. With their animosity gone, he had hoped they could’ve reached amicable terms, but what with the way the boy kept running from him, he couldn’t fathom himself having much luck in his efforts.

He was returning to the tavern for lunch that same day when he happened to see Freyr helping a man carry what looked like a crate full of rocks towards the ceremonial grounds. The boy worked with bare arms to keep from sweating, and along his skin, feathers of darkest black grew to keep him warm all the same. Haeseon recognised them at once; even if the canary hadn’t flared up in discontent at the sight of them, he had borne the same quills himself, however reluctantly.

It surprised him to realise Freyr had not yet given the crow a home of its own. There was no one aboard his ship to take it, Haeseon knew, but surely there were men and women amongst Talya’s crew who could’ve welcomed the crow’s Blessing. Even if not, he couldn’t imagine anyone in the town of Ísafjörður would’ve turned away something so precious.

Perhaps, Haeseon mused when he sat down for lunch next to Seunggi, Freyr was indecisive about whom to pass the crow’s Blessing to out of caring. It was a living thing, after all, and so perhaps the boy wanted to ensure whomever would wield it would take proper care of it.

No matter how it had pained him to bear the crow’s Blessing instead of his own, Haeseon was still glad to know it was—and would be—in good hands. Even if they wouldn’t become close friends, at least he could draw comfort from the thought.

The absence of hostility between the three crews served another purpose as well, one Haeseon was eternally grateful for. With no one sending menacing glares their way, Yeonshin became far less nervous in moving about the town of Ísafjörður. On the very first day, he hardly dared to leave the room he shared with Daewon, Jun, and Seunggi, frightened by the lodging that was so different from the safety he knew aboard the August.

He stayed at the tavern with the cook to watch over him while the others joined the northerners for a funeral rite for those they had lost in the battle against Saga. As captain, it was Talya who lit the fires to burn their bodies to ash, and while she sent her men off to the next life with a smile, tears fell silently down her cheeks when she spoke Refur’s name and asked him to wait for her and the rest of them in the halls of Valhöll.

Haeseon cried as well, clutching tightly onto Jihan’s hand while thanking the fallen archer over and over for the sacrifice he had made so that both he and Yeonshin could live.

The surgeon had not been brave enough to stand beside him then, but by the morning of the third day, Haeseon went to the kitchens to fetch a mug of water, only to find Yeonshin sitting alone at one of the tables by the window, a mug of steaming tea in his hands and a solemn look on his face as he gazed out into the winter’s darkness. He didn’t say a word when he noticed Haeseon’s presence, but he sent him a small smile and nodded, appearing to be at peace.

Small as the gesture was, it filled Haeseon with joy to see. Thus far, the surgeon had dreaded loneliness more than anything at all, as if it made him fear he would be thrown off the August and its crew, so seeing him willingly choose a moment of solitude was relieving.

Haeseon smiled to himself now, where he lay in his bed and peered into the same darkness outside the window of his and Jihan’s room. Their days spent at Ísafjörður had been blessedly serene, even in the wake of him freeing Fenrir from his chains. The imbalance of the world the god had spoken of had not yet come, at least not as far as Haeseon could tell, and until it did, he would revel in the peace they had fought so hard to attain.

He swore he would cling onto their happiness with all his might, even if the world was thrown into chaos around them.

It wasn’t until Jihan turned in his sleep that he ceased his musings. Even when sleeping, the captain always sought out his closeness and touch, as if he couldn’t rest properly without it. He pressed his face into the crook of Haeseon’s neck and threw his arm over his chest to pull him closer, his fingers gripping at him for a moment before easing out of their tension once more.

Like this, they lay flush against one another, and with a flare of warmth, Haeseon realised the captain was aroused.

It wasn't as if it was a strange thing—ever since they'd first began to share a bed, Haeseon had found Jihan asleep in a state of arousal every bit as often as he himself woke in the middle of the night, flushed with desire—but it felt different now. Perhaps it was the amount of time that had passed since they'd last been intimate with one another; it had been before they'd sailed North, Haeseon realised after a moment's flustered thought.

Jihan's state spread to him like fire. An ache settled in the depths of his stomach, one of longing for his beloved's touch, both outside and within. He squirmed in an attempt to relieve some of the sudden pressure, but all it served was to make Jihan groan against his neck and pull him closer still. Even through the layer of robes and furs he’d slept in, Haeseon still felt the captain’s arousal press against the back of his thigh.

Stilling, he closed his eyes and drew a steadying breath. His skin felt too hot beneath his clothes, but he did not move as he considered what to do now. Part of him wanted to let Jihan continue his rest, knowing he needed it more than anyone else, but the yearning Haeseon felt was overwhelming. The thought of waking the captain simply because he craved his touch made Haeseon shy, as if they hadn’t done it plenty of times before.

After a moment of arguing silently with himself, during which he only grew more heated in his beloved’s embrace, Haeseon parted his lips, nervously running his tongue over the lower one before raising his voice. “Jihan,” he whispered, so quietly he wasn’t surprised when the captain did not so much as stir. Drawing his lip between his teeth, Haeseon instead reached behind himself and placed a hand on Jihan’s shoulder, giving a light squeeze. “Jihan, wake up.”

An incoherent mutter was the first to leave the captain’s lips when he eventually stirred from his rest. It was a meek sound of protest; in his drowsy state, he only pulled Haeseon closer still, seeking his warmth everywhere he could find it. Refusing to open his eyes just yet, he hummed and made a weak attempt at clearing his throat before trying again. “‘S the matter, songbird?” he asked, his voice low and thick with sleep.

“Jihan,” Haeseon said again, struggling for the right words. He did not know why he was so shy now. It wasn’t as if it was their first time or even their tenth, yet he felt more bashful then he had in a long time. “Jihan, you’re—I mean—”

Upon his nervous words, Jihan seemed to sober up a little, and as soon as he did, he stiffened where he lay flush against Haeseon’s back. He was quiet for a moment before emitting a quiet groan. “Sorry,” he mumbled, sounding thoroughly frustrated with himself. “‘M just tired. Don’t mind it, songbird.” He pressed his lips against the nape of Haeseon’s neck in a brief peck of apology before he began to pull away.

It was not at all what Haeseon had intended; he took hold of Jihan’s hand before he could withdrew it and pulled him back where he had been. “I didn’t—no,” he said and turned his head so his voice was muffled by the sheets. “That’s not what I meant.” The warmth of his cheeks grew hotter still when he felt the captain’s eyes finally settle on his face. “I meant,” he said, fumbling, “it’s alright.”

Another brief moment of silence followed his words. Then Jihan hummed, still drowsy, and settled back against him. “‘S alright, huh,” he mused, his smile audible from his voice. “But the walls here are thinner than that of our quarters aboard the ship, you know. The others are still asleep, but they’d have no trouble hearing us should we… well.”

In spite of his words, he made little effort to fight Haeseon’s grip on his wrist. On the contrary, the captain traced lazy circles into his waist through his robes, pressing down with his thumb. Haeseon shuddered and shook his head. “It’s alright,” he insisted and was emboldened when he felt Jihan smile against the skin of his neck.

“So what did you imagine would happen now, songbird?” the captain asked. He already knew the answer, Haeseon knew he did, but Jihan’s teasing spurred him on, some of his shyness fading.

With a thrill of bravery, Haeseon drew his bottom lip between his teeth and turned to look at his beloved at the same time as he guided Jihan’s hand further down, until he could press it against his own growing arousal. “Now,” he whispered, “I’ll be quiet for you.”

The captain was on him at once, a hiss of a curse slipping past his lips before he kissed Haeseon with all the urgency of a drowning man. There was little finesse to it, but it was just as Haeseon wanted; he needed Jihan’s closeness, and he knew his beloved needed him in return. Haeseon drew him in, every bit as eager as he pressed the captain’s hand more firmly against his groin at the same time as he reached up and laced his fingers into Jihan’s hair to pull him closer still.

“Please,” he gasped when they parted for air, both of them equally breathless. He made his voice quiet on purpose, in spite of the effort it took, knowing it would only serve to spur the captain on. “Please, Jihan, I need you, I need—”

“Hush, songbird,” Jihan whispered against his lips before claiming them again in a languid kiss. He shifted to get one leg underneath him to bear his weight while his hand resumed the awkward movements Haeseon coaxed him into, pushing and kneading at him through his trousers. “There’s no need to rush.”

Contrary to his words, the captain’s urgency was clear as day, every bit as feverish with desire as Haeseon was himself. While his shyness rendered him speechless, Haeseon did not hesitate to reach for the bonds of Jihan’s trousers and pushed his hand underneath the hem to wrap his fingers around his cock.

“Fuck.” The captain’s own hand stuttering its movements as he buried his face in the crook of Haeseon’s neck, hissing. “Gods, your hand is cold,” he said with a strained chuckle, his frame quivering with both the chills and the rush of pleasure. Wanting to feel the tremors that went through him, Haeseon pushed his other hand up beneath the top of Jihan’s robes and against his abdomen, revelling in the gasp that spilled from his beloved’s lips.

When the strain of remaining kneeling upright became too much, Jihan lay on his side to free his right arm from having to bear the whole of his weight. His movements were far clumsier without his prosthetic to give him balance, but as soon as Haeseon had shoved down his own trousers, the captain took him in his hand and stroked him until he was dripping with pleasure.

“You’re so lovely, songbird,” Jihan murmured against his neck, kissing the heated skin there over and over. When he pressed his thumb just beneath the crown of Haeseon’s cock to make him gasp, he hushed him immediately after, his tone teasing. “You have to be quiet, or they’ll hear you.”

“I will be, I will,” Haeseon said in a breathless whisper, one hand gripping the sheets while the other reached behind himself to clutch at the captain’s arm. “I only—I’m—gods, I’ve missed you so much, Jihan.”

Jihan emitted a strained sound at that, muffled against the back of Haeseon’s neck as he rutted against him, his arousal pressing up against his bottom. “I’m right here,” he said, mouthing at his heated skin. “You have me, songbird, all of me.”

It was a rushed affair, made urgent by their passion and burning desire. Jihan spent only a moment to prepare him, pressing only two fingers past his rim before Haeseon begged him to move on. The lack of lubricant made it sting more than it had before when Jihan finally pushed inside of him, but it was a welcome ache, one that shoved him to the edge of pleasure and nearly threw him off it without warning.

“Fuck,” the captain groaned against his neck and raised himself enough so he could capture Haeseon’s lips in a kiss, deep and hungry. When he rolled his hips, Haeseon turned away to muffle his high-pitched moan into the sheets, burning tremors rushing through his body. His muscles wound themself taut as Jihan reached inside his furs to trace along his abdomen, his cold fingers making Haeseon shudder and arch. “Fuck, songbird, you’re so warm.”

There was an answer on Haeseon’s lips, one shy and teasing all at once, but he did not dare raise his face from the sheets for long enough to speak them. Jihan had just as little patience as he did just then, rutting against him while he played with his nipple, pinching it and hissing out another curse when Haeseon tightened around him. It was overwhelming, and Haeseon’s cries of pleasure burned in his throat with the effort it took to keep them down.

It wasn’t as if Jihan was faring any better. He appeared every bit as affected as Haeseon, pressing gasps and muffled grunts against Haeseon’s neck for every thrust of his hips. He never retreated far, as if he was loathe to lose Haeseon’s heat around him before he pushed back inside, over and over while Haeseon quivered in his embrace.

When Jihan moved his hand down and grabbed at his thigh to pull him closer still, he sank deeper than before, throbbing when Haeseon’s body wound itself tight with pleasure. The moans stacked in his throat broke free, and even when Haeseon pressed a hand to his lips to stifle them, they still sounded in the silence of the night, high in pitch and breathless. It was too much to bear, even when he took hold of Jihan’s hand and raised it to replace his own, pressing it down over his mouth.

“Songbird,” the captain rasped in his ear, his voice cracking with the strain of it. He lost the rhythm he had built for them, his movements growing desperate as he pushed, pushed, pushed as deep inside Haeseon as he could go. “Gods, you don’t know how you torment me, songbird, fuck.”

With his own hands freed, Haeseon reached down and gripped at his own arousal, seeking the completion Jihan was hurtling him towards. He panted and moaned against the palm of Jihan’s hand and only barely kept himself from sinking his teeth into the captain’s finger when he reached his peak. His body strung itself wonderfully taut with the force of his orgasm, until he felt as if he was coming apart at the seams, shattering in his beloved’s embrace.

He was only vaguely aware of the stuttered curse that slipped past Jihan’s gritted teeth when he reached his own climax, drawing back just in time to spill his seed over Haeseon’s bottom. Haeseon’s thoughts were slow, his mind clouded in the wake of his pleasure, but he turned his head and parted his lips for Jihan to kiss him, hungrily swallowing his sounds of ecstasy.

Neither of them said a word for a long moment afterwards, both struggling to catch their breath. Haeseon recovered first—it always seemed to take the captain a bit longer to come down from his high—and pulled his britches back up over his bottom, uncaring of the mess it would make of them. Carefully, he tucked Jihan back into his own trousers, smiling when he groaned with sensitivity, and curled up against his chest, feeling warm and content and so very happy.

“Go back to sleep,” he crooned and pressed his lips against the captain’s collarbones. “The sun won’t be up for hours still.”

At first, Jihan only hummed in reply, but once he had gotten comfortable once more, he huffed out a silent laughter against the top of Haeseon’s head. “I don’t think you managed to be very quiet, songbird,” he said, teasing.

Haeseon reached under his robes and pinched the skin of the captain’s hip, and did not stop until Jihan apologised.

When they finally left their room to join the others for breakfast, Haeseon noticed at once the excitement in the air. The northerners were unusually quiet, even as they fidgeted in their seats, as if they could not quite keep themselves still. They whispered amongst one another, too exhilarated to eat even a bite of the bread and fish laid out on the tables before them.

“What’s going on?” Haeseon asked of Seunggi and Daewon when he took his seat by their side. The first mate parted his lips to answer, but before he had the chance to, Talya came bounding over and threw her arms around Haeseon’s neck. “What—”

“The skies will be clear tonight,” the Northern Cardinal crowed in delight. Just like her men, she was beyond herself with excitement. “Our voices will reach the gods’ realm of Ásgarðr. Tonight, when the moon stands highest, we will honour them in ceremony.”

Her thrill made sense then. Although Haeseon himself did not understand what could’ve been so exciting about a ritual to show the gods their devotion, the whole of Ísafjörður had been simmering with elation at the prospect of it. Every day since the three crews’ arrival had been spent in preparation, whether it be to go into the woods and cut trees for firewood or to clear snow from the area just outside town where the ceremony would be held.

Talya disappeared after breakfast, leaving Ísafjörður in her Blessing’s form to hunt. There was not much for the August’s crew to do in her absence; the northerners were far too busy to make ready for the night. The best they could do was stay out of the way, until hours after the sun had set, when the vǫlva came to look for them in the tavern and told them to follow her.

She them through the night’s darkness with a torch to guide their way. Blind as she was, she had little need for it—she seemed to know the steps to take towards the ceremony by heart—but it made it easier for the August’s crew to walk, saving Xiao from tripping over a pile of firewood. It wasn’t a long walk, and the rest of the town and the pirates of Talya and Freyr’s crews had already gathered at the site, waiting with a hum of exhilaration.

Even when the seer showed them their seats around the ritual grounds, there was little light to illuminate the preparations that had been made. Haeseon squinted through the dark, but all he could see was silhouettes of both the stone altar and the northerners, and hear the excitement of their voices.

As if the skies themselves knew of the rite they had prepared for, it saw fit to give them the light they lacked in the black of night. Haeseon had barely had time to take his seat before waves of yellow and green, pale as dawn, began to flicker across the clear sky. The aurora came to life slowly to cast its glow on the ceremony that had yet to begin. At once, the thrill of the northerners flared, their voices swelling in delight.

Distracted in his awe, Haeseon did not realise the vǫlva had left their side until the northern pirates grew silent once more. He looked around and realised they were waiting, eyes all but hungry as they watched the seer walk towards the circle of dormant braziers built, her torch raised high above her head.

She said nothing until she stood right beside the closest one. Everyone around them held their breath in waiting, until she spoke a single, strange word, and threw the torch onto the firewood.

At once, every brazier burst to life, flames rising without prompt until the whole circle stood burning. Their light blinded Haeseon and he raised his hand to shield his eyes, but changed his mind halfway, awed by what he saw. The fires illuminated the altar of worship and bathed it in lights of red and orange from every side, with only a narrow opening in the flames to allow passage.

The northerners, both pirates and townsfolk, surrounded the braziers, cheering and chanting in delight as the seer stepped away from the lights and crouched to lift a large wooden bowl from the ground and handed it to Freyr, who stood nearest to her. Haeseon wanted to ask what the bowl held, but the words died in his throat when he looked at the altar, properly looked at it, and recognised the Northern Cardinal’s form.

Talya was hardly recognisable where she stood amidst the circle of flames, moving around the altar and its large stone carved with letters Haeseon could not read. She was dressed in naught but a leather vest lined with white fur and a skirt decorated with wooden marbles, far too little for the winter cold. She did not seem to care; barefoot she danced over the frozen ground, every inch of her skin covered in white, cracking paint and a liquid dark and gleaming.

The smile on Talya’s lips was wide as she began to speak in her foreign tongue, her hands raised over her head as if she was reaching for the sky’s aurora. She turned on the heel, the beads in her hair clattering as she did, her gilded jewels gleaming in the light of the fires. When she placed her hand against the large stone and traced along its rough surface, her touch left a trail of red in its wake, and the northerners cheered and applauded.

“Blood,” Daewon said, his voice nearly drowned by the heavy beat of the drums. He spoke calmly and offered Haeseon a reassuring smile when he frowned with worry. “Animal sacrifice is part of their rites. Do you see the rune stone and the altar? There is blood sprinkled all over it as well, to show their gods their devotion.”

“The bowl is filled with blood as well,” Jihan said and grimaced, something Haeseon was quick to mimic. “They will not give it to us. We don’t worship their gods and they know it. Blood sacrifice is not for us to partake in, thankfully.”

Haeseon’s stomach twisted as he watched the northerners pass the bowl back and forth, raising it over their heads as if it was a splendid treasure to hold. As they did, Talya began to speak—chant was more like it—her voice rising into the night’s air. “What is she saying?” he asked of Jihan, who watched the spectacle with a look of doubt.

“She’s speaking to her gods,” the captain said and leaned closer without taking his eyes off the Northern Cardinal amidst her rite. “She’s asking them to forgive her—to forgive us—for our foolish human ways. For freeing the beast of slaughter.” He smiled, but it was skewed and full of disdain. “She’s too cheerful,” he said, scoffing. “She laughs while asking for their favour, as if freeing Fenrir is an act no more severe than breaking a glass cup.”

As if she had heard him, Talya threw her head back and laughed, raising her arms towards the dancing lights once more. She closed her eyes and leaned back as if she could draw the heavens into her embrace, and spoke in a voice that rose above the beating of the drums. “Let us live on in this world of madness and love,” Jihan cited. “Let us live on, by the mercy of Óðinn and Frigg, and if not, come for us yourselves and tear us from our mortal existence. By Þórr himself, we will give you a worthy battle before we go to the arms of the merciful Valkyrja.”

A shudder went through Haeseon upon hearing the Northern Cardinal’s words. There was glee to her voice even as she spoke of her own demise; he wondered if she spoke of her own heritage with mockery, to dare the gods to come slay a daughter of Óðinn’s own chosen. He thought of what the vǫlva had told him of her. Talya did not acknowledge herself as the daughter of the Valkyrja, yet she spoke of them all the same, as if it was a challenge for the gods she had devoted herself to.

“Forgive us, King Óðinn, when Ásgarðr stands aflame,” Jihan went on, frowning now. “Forgive us, or take us into your ranks to fight with you against the horror we set free.” He finally looked away at that, shaking his head as he reached for his cup of mead. “She’s asking to be struck down by the gods as if it was a thing to jest about,” he said and drank deep. “I wonder when she decided on insanity. She seemed fine when we saw her this morning.”

It was a mere jest, Haeseon knew it from his voice alone, but part of him couldn’t help but wonder the extent of the sincerity in Talya’s words. The vǫlva had told him the Northern Cardinal lacked the sense of common men, emboldened by the blood of the Valkyrja that flowed in her veins. She hungered for battle just as much as she did for sustenance, and so, no matter how frightening a thought it was, it would hardly have surprised Haeseon had Talya truly been issuing a proper challenge for the gods of the North.

He was taken out of his musings when Seunggi nudged his side, nodding towards the heart of the flames. “She’s looking at you, Haesae,” he whispered with thrill in his voice, as if he was beholding the most exhilarating of affairs.

When Haeseon followed his gaze, he realised the quartermaster was correct. Talya had ceased her prancing around the engraved stone and instead stood at its front, one hand pressed against the symbols carved into its surface while the other still reached up towards the sky. Her eyes, however, were looking right at Haeseon. Her smile grew wider when their gazes met, and she beckoned him to the flames, although she still did not speak his tongue.

Haeseon did not immediately stir, hesitant in the face of what the Northern Cardinal could want of him. He knew she would not lead him into something that would cause him harm, but with the northerners’ hooting and cheers, he knew he was like to come away from the spectacle with even more of a reason to be shy around her kin.

In the end, he had little choice but to comply. While Talya remained standing by the flames even as she beckoned him, in her stead, the vǫlva came to stand before their table and raised her hand towards him. Behind her mask of a stag’s skull, her blind eyes glittered in the lights of the fires. “Come,” she said and crooked her fingers. “You broke the chains that bound the beast of slaughter, Yun Haeseon. It was done by our will and the fault of it lies with us, so we must grant you protection from the gods’ temper.”

Although hesitant, Haeseon rose from his seat and went to her to take her hand, but not before throwing a nervous look Jihan’s way. Her touch was cold as ice, yet gentle as she guided his way to the fires. “Do you still doubt?” she asked of him in a murmur, words spoken only for him and not the dozens of cheering northerners. “After all that has happened and all you have seen, do you still think yourself insignificant in the eyes of gods?”

Haeseon pressed his lips together, a heaviness settling over his chest. “I don’t know about your gods,” he said carefully. “I know now that they are true, but I have not changed. I’m still me and no one else.” Perhaps it was a trick of the mind, but the flames flickered with his words, as did the lights dancing across the sky. “I’m Yun Haeseon, and I am the canary. Nothing more.”

When the vǫlva spoke now, there was a smile to her voice, as if she found his words amusing. “You may not be of godly blood or descent, Yun Haeseon,” she said, “but you are precious all the same. More so than you realise, and more so than I can tell you.”

Her words were cryptic and confusing, as they always had been. Haeseon wondered if he should ask her for clarification at all, knowing she was like to refuse, but the chance for it was taken from him when the vǫlva urged him to step past the opening in the fires and into its heart, where Talya waited for him.

Still chanting in her tongue, she took his hand and led him towards the stone. From up close, the blood smeared across her skin shone bright red, as did the liquid smattering the runes engraved in the boulder’s surface. Haeseon grimaced at the slick sensation against his wrist where Talya held onto him, but the frown fell from his lips when she guided his hand to press flat against the stone’s symbols.

A pulse of warmth went through him the instant he touched the rough surface. The fires flickered and bent all around them, and high above the lot of them, the aurora split asunder, a rift of purple and green seeping into the flashes of yellow and tearing them apart. The northerners exclaimed as one, shouting amongst one another and clapping their hands, and Talya joined her voice to theirs, turning to spur them on.

Even after she had let him go, Haeseon remained standing before the stone, immobilised by shock of what had happened. He stared up into the sky even though it made his eyes sting to watch the bright aurora as it split off again and again, breaking off into threads until its shape resembled that of a strike of lightning.

Haeseon did not look away—he couldn’t—until Talya returned to his side and drew him into her arms with so much eagerness, he was pulled back from the stone. “They hear you, sweet Haeseon,” she said breathlessly, wild with excitement. Her eyes shone in the light of the fires, the thin pupils narrowing further still. “The skies hear you, they know your name. Blessed by the gods, untouchable.”

“What do you mean?” Haeseon asked, utterly bewildered. With a shudder of dread, he realised he had heard the words spoken before, not by Talya, but by the vǫlva, days before he’d ever been struck by the storm in their battle against Son Oseong. Blessed by the gods, she had said while drawing patterns in white paint across his chest. “Talya—”

“They know it,” she went on, as if she could not hear his voice. She let him go and turned towards the flames, taking long strides along the circle they made. “Your name is not theirs to touch, not in wrath nor in love. Wings of rose, born from the sky, freer than the rest. The beast of slaughter knew it, and now the rest do as well.”

They were the last words she spoke in his tongue before changing to that of her home. She seemed to have forgotten he was there at all, consumed by the rite as she was as she danced around the altar of stone and blood. Her state was foreign to behold, so much so it frightened Haeseon and made him worry.

“What is happening to her?” he asked of the vǫlva, who stood in waiting for him at the opening in the flames. “She can’t—she doesn’t hear my voice.”

“When the gods speak, other voices are difficult to hear,” the seer said. She appeared wholly unperturbed by the sight of her captain in her state of trance, as if it was a common thing to behold. “You may return to your betrothed, Yun Haeseon. She will not know you until she has heard what the gods would tell her.”

No sooner had the words left her lips before Jihan appeared at her side, looking every bit as bewildered by the spectacle as Haeseon felt. “Songbird,” he said with no small amount of concern. He raised his hand to reach for Haeseon’s, but the vǫlva stopped him before he could stray past the circle of fires. “What are you—”

“Be careful, Choi Jihan,” she said, staring blindly over his shoulder. “Hidden flames may burn those who stride past them without permission.” She ignored the scowl that settled on the captain’s face in favour of turning to Haeseon to beckon him towards them. When he approached, she took his hand and guided it to Jihan’s, and waited until they held onto one another before letting them go. “Enjoy the rest of the ceremony.”

With that, she turned and walked away, leaving the two of them even more confused than before. “What the hell was that about?” Jihan muttered and shook his head before turning to Haeseon, his prior worry quick to return. “Are you alright, songbird? What did Sabelsdottír say to you?”

“I’m not certain,” Haeseon said and glanced at the Northern Cardinal from over his shoulder. “She was… strange, as if she didn’t realise I was there. I don’t think she knew what she was doing.”

The captain’s frown dug deeper and he pulled Haeseon against his side, leading him back towards their seats. “Daewon said the northerners drink some sort of concoctions as part of their ceremonial rites,” he said, although he spoke with uncertainty. “Strange liquids to give them visions of their gods and to hear their voices as part of some trance, much like the shamans in the East do. Sabelsdottír might’ve done the same.”

Haeseon nodded, although he remained every bit as unsettled as before. He wanted to speak with Talya, but it didn’t seem like she would stop dancing anytime soon, lost as she was in the ritual. No one else appeared to share their concern; while those of the August’s crew exchanged looks of concern amongst one another, the northerners only looked on in delight, spurring on their Cardinal with shouts of encouragement.

Freyr cheered alongside the others and Qasim looked to have fallen asleep in his seat, easily exhausted in his state of recovery, so Haeseon pushed his concern to the back of his mind and decided to ask Talya about it in the morning instead. He looked away from the spectacle and instead turned to the aurora, silently asking the dancing lights to soothe him in his turmoil.

For all his efforts, rest did not come easy to him when he eventually left the ceremony with Jihan and Seunggi. The northerners did not seem to want to cease their feasting anytime soon, showing not a trace of exhaustion, but when the quartermaster began to nod off, leaning against Haeseon’s shoulder, the captain coaxed them onto their feet to bring them back to the tavern.

Haeseon lay awake for what felt like hours after Jihan had fallen asleep. He stared out the window, where he could still see the aurora, and tried and failed to not think on what Talya had said.

Eventually, he did manage to surrender to his exhaustion with the promise of finding the Northern Cardinal as soon as he would wake once more.

However, when Haeseon looked for her the following morning to ask what had happened, Talya answered his question with bewilderment of her own, her brow furrowing in thought. She looked tired from the night’s ordeal, the skin beneath her eyes dark and paint and blood still clinging stubbornly to the skin of her hands even though she had bathed.

“What do you mean?” she asked, frowning. “I don’t remember speaking to you yesterday. I mean,” she took on a sheepish look, “I don’t remember much at all of what happened after the ceremony began. I remember the sacrifice and the lighting of the fires, but…” She shrugged her shoulders, wholly unconcerned of her own gap in memory. “What did I tell you? Did I frighten you? I know our ceremonies can be shocking for the stranger to see.”

“No,” Haeseon said at once, even though it wasn’t quite the truth. “You only—you said I was—” He hesitated, an odd sensation coming over him upon having to repeat the Northern Cardinal’s words, spoken in what appeared to have been a mindless trance. “You said I was blessed by the gods. You said they knew my name.”

“Oh.” She said nothing for a moment, and then she smiled as cheerfully as she always did. “Have I not said so time and time again, sweet Haeseon?” she asked with a chuckle, as if she was relieved to hear the truth for what it was. “I’ve known it since I stood beside you in the East. You are favoured by the gods. I know it, and I’ve told you as much.”

Haeseon frowned. While she had indeed insisted on it more than once, claiming his relation to gods and spirits alike, it had been different the night before. “Yes,” he said slowly. There was more he had thought to say, but in the face of Talya’s carefreeness, he became uncertain.

Upon his hesitation, the Northern Cardinal arched a curious brow and grinned. “Do you finally believe me, then?” she asked slyly. “Is that what’s got you so nervous?”

Whatever had happened in the night, hers was an easy question to answer. “No,” Haeseon said and managed a smile, the pressure in his chest easing somewhat upon her cheery demeanor. “I may have seen your gods and know them to be true, but they are not mine. They have no reason to care for me.”

Talya groaned and made a show of slumping against the table, nearly knocking over her mug of water. “One day, I will convince you,” she muttered, “I swear it. But first,” she reached for him and pulled him close, her feigned frown turning into a sharp grin, “I heard the Black Fox finally asked for your hand in marriage.”

Warmth rushed to Haeseon’s cheeks and he looked around in the tavern’s dining room, knowing only one person there who could’ve told her without his knowledge. “Did Seunggi tell you?” he asked, knowing well enough the quartermaster had spent time alone with Talya over the past few days.

“He did,” she conceded with a chortle. “I gave him a stone engraved with the rune of love to give to his own sweetling when you return to the East, and he spilled your secret without thinking twice.”

Haeseon huffed at that, pursing his lips in protest. “It wasn’t a secret,” he said, although it was hardly the point to protest.

“Then why have you not told me?” Talya retorted, no heat to her voice. She wasn’t accusing him, she was only doing that which Haeseon had known she would do once she found out.

“Because I knew you would be,” he began, gesturing towards her, “like this. Teasing.”

“Of course.” The Northern Cardinal snorted, as if it was an obvious thing. “How could I not, when you blush so prettily upon the mention of it?” she asked, sharp teeth bared in the width of her smile. “It makes you look happy. I like to see you happy, sweet Haeseon.”

There was little Haeseon could do but return her smile, and forget his prior concerns when she pulled him down to sit next to her and torment him with questions of what plans he had for the wedding.

-

With the ceremony over and done with, there was little else to give the August’s crew reason to stay in the North. It wasn’t many days after that Chodan regained enough of his strength to survive the long trek back to their own seas in the East, and so they began to prepare for their departure. The townsfolk of Ísafjörður provided them with food, both fresh and preserved to last for weeks, as well as barrels of water and mead for them to drink. The vǫlva stacked phials of salves and potions in the infirmary and told Jun the effect of each of them, and showed Haeseon how to properly change the binds of the gunner’s legs.

Besides food and medicine, the northerners provided them with three large crates filled to the brim with furs of various colours and texture. Most of them were to serve as blankets to keep them warm during their travels, but Talya, true to her determination to rile Haeseon up every chance she could possibly get, had snuck the furs he had worn the firs time he had seen the aurora and learned about the spirits’ journey to the afterlife.

The furs she had worn for her own wedding.

Seunggi descended into a fit of laughter upon the sight of the beautiful garb, cackling in delight while Haeseon shoved them back into the crate and slammed it shut, swearing to never open it again for as long as he lived.

At least not in a place where anyone but Jihan would see.

Throughout the preparations they made to leave, Talya whined and complained, bemoaning the fact that she would no longer see her sweet Haeseon whenever she wanted. Even as she helped them stock the pantry, she looked as if she had half a mind to toss the crate of potatoes in her arms over the rail in a gesture of petulant protest.

Thankfully, she didn’t go so far, but she did lay a halfhearted curse over the roots instead.

The day of their departure came much too fast. Before Haeseon knew it, he found himself standing on the docks of Ísafjörður with the others readying the August to cast off. He lingered after Jihan spoke his farewells and boarded along with Seunggi, staying behind to thank the townsfolk for their hospitality even though they could not understand his words.

Qasim turned his words for them, and he was immediately pulled into a crushing embrace by the lot of them. They flocked around him and chattered happily; he imagined they were telling him to come back any time he wanted, so different from anything he’d ever seen in the East.

When they let him go, Haeseon turned to Talya to bid her farewell, but he paused at the sight of who had joined them on the docks. Freyr fidgeted next to his mother, as if he was uncertain if his farewells were wanted at all. Smiling, Haeseon walked over to the boy to pull him aside by the arm, strangely endeared by his nervousness. They had not spoken to one another since he’d made his apologies, but he had a thought now, an idea of sorts for whatever small steps they could take to mend the tension between them and close whatever gap had been torn open.

“Tell me,” Haeseon said without letting go of the boy’s arm, “if I wrote you a letter one day, simply to ask how you’re faring in the North or West or wherever you sail your ship, would you read it?” His smile grew wider at the same time Freyr’s eyes did, round with surprise. “I wouldn’t know where else to send it but here, but it could wait in Ísafjörður until your return.”

It was a slow thing, how Freyr’s startled hesitance retreated to give way for a smile, small and shy, yet eager all the same. “I’d read it,” he said, nodding. There was relief in his voice, as well as gratitude, as if the suggestion had rid him of a weight bearing down on his shoulders. “And I could write you back and send it to Shanghai. I’ve never been there, but Talya—my mother told me Shanghai is to your crew what Ísafjörður is to mine, so…”

He said nothing more, perhaps growing flustered at the prospect, so Haeseon nodded as well and patted Freyr’s arm. “I’d like that, Freyr,” he said and smiled, and took joy in the thought that they might one day become proper friends.

Finally, he turned away from him to look to Talya instead, only to find her waiting. As soon as he took a step her way, she rushed to meet him and took his hand in her own to draw him into her arms, holding him with such tenderness, it overwhelmed him. “Thank you, sweet Haeseon,” she said warmly and pressed her lips against his cheek. “For everything you’ve done for us.”

The gentle tone of her voice had sudden tears prickling at Haeseon’s eyes, but he only smiled and returned her embrace. “I’m glad I could help you,” he said, reluctant to let go of her even when someone called his name from aboard the August once more. The thought of not seeing the Northern Cardinal for so long was strange; even though she had promised to invite them to the North again, sailing back and forth between the seas would take months and months. “I’m going to miss you so much.”

“So am I,” Talya said. She tightened her grip on him and gave him a final squeeze before gently pushing him away, although she did not let go of his hands. “But we’ll see each other again, I swear it. No matter what the gods will, I’ll find my way back to you over and over.”

Haeseon did cry then, but he did it with a smile still on his lips. “Yes,” he said and leaned into her touch when she raised her hand to wipe the tears from his cheeks. He revelled in her warmth and the contrast it struck against the northern chill, drawing comfort from the thought that she could banish the cold from this world. “No matter what, we’ll see each other again.”

The Northern Cardinal nodded, grinning, and finally let him go.

His tears had dried by the time he boarded the August, but when he joined the others by the helm, Jihan touched his cheek all the same, every bit as gently as Talya had done. “Are you sad, songbird?” he asked and drew Haeseon against his side.

“No,” Haeseon said, placing his hand over the captain’s and squeezing. It was the truth; in his beloved’s arms, surrounded by those he cared for most, sorrow was an impossible thing. Jihan smiled and kissed his lips, and Haeseon knew naught but joy. “Not anymore.”

No matter how he would long to see his friend again, he missed the seas of the East as well and the noise of the port of Shanghai. He missed the familiarity of the coasts and the ocean surrounding the land he had once called his own. He yearned for it all, and finally, they were sailing back where he belonged.

They were going home.

-

END OF BOOK TWO

-

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhokay

so

sO

THEY DID IT

THEY HAD THE SEX

THE BOOK IS NOW COMPLETE JIHAN'S BALLS ARE NO LONGER BLUE AYYYYYYY

JSHDJSHDJSHD

for real though, i'm so emotional right now tho like holy shit you won't beLIEVE how writing this chapter made me feel okay ;u; i've been smiling the whole time because this really took almost ten months and i've explored so many emotions in it. it's so much darker and more serious than tsts, and writing this darkness and adding moments of hope and light was just, ugh, it was hARD okay

aND THEY'RE NOT ALL OKAY YET THERE'S STILL SO MUCH LEFT TO HAPPEN IN THE THIRD AND FOURTH BOOK GOOD LORD UGH

but like... what an interesting ceremony that was wow there sure are things to be explored further in the next book hmm how curious hmmmm look at all that setup for sTUFF to happen wow haeseon sure has much still to learn about himself hUM

*U*

(sidenote but rituals of old norse/icelandic mythology were hecking brutal okay they drained the blood of sacrificial animals and smeared it over themselves and passed it along one another before pouring the blood back over the animal .______. this was supposed to show gratitude and devotion to the gods and i'm like oKAY SURE M8 IF YOU SAY SO)

also can i just take a moment to gush over pen pals haeseon and freyr? it warms my heart so much okay now that freyr is working on getting over his jealousy and patching stuff up with talya, you bet your ass he’s gonna join his mom’s haeseon fanclub like no one can resist the songbird charms uwu i mean i know i'm the author and i decide what happens bUT CAN'T YOU JUST IMAGINE HAESEON BEING ALL BIG BROTHER-Y TO FREYR PLS IT MAKES ME SO SOFT

and qasim lost his arm :( saga's poison spread too deep for even the volva to save him without severing the afflicted limb from the rest of his body :(( but big uwu points to jihan for being sympathetic okay writing the moment when he offers to recommend his armourer to qasim should he want a prosthesis just hit me right in the feels because :((( they don't particularly like one another, but jihan knows what qasim is going through, no matter how snarky he is about it

but yeah

NEXT WEEK IS THE EPILOGUE, AND THEN THE THE SONGBIRD AND THE NORTH IS TRULY OVER

I CAN'T BELIEVE

HECK

THANK YOU ALL FOR STICKING AROUND FOR THIS WILD RIDE WITH ME OKAY I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH, READING ALL YOUR COMMENTS MAKE ME SO HAPPY LIKE YOU WON'T BELIEVE HOW ENDEARED I AM BY YOUR REACTIONS, THEY LEGIT GIVE ME LIFE SO

;___________;

THANK YOU!

INFO ABOUT WHAT'S NEXT!

okay so i'll go into more detail next week in a separate post, but! the gist of what i have planned for the future is as follows;

i'm gonna spend about a month uploading the revised version of the Songbird and the Sea here (one chapter per day) for those who'd like to reread it with the new names and edits i've made to the story as a whole, at the same time as i prepare to start writing the third book.

if you're not interested in rereading tsts and would rather unsubscribe while waiting for me to start the third book, i totally understand that! if that's the case, you can unsubscribe after i post the epilogue and the information post next wednesday, and then check back to my patreon in a bit over a month's time, towards the end of september; by then, i should've started uploading the Songbird and the Gift! even if you've unsubscribed, you should still be able to see the titles of the posts i upload to my patreon, which means you can wait until you see "The Songbird and the Gift - Prologue" pop up on my page~~!

SEE Y'ALL NEXT WEEK!!


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